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It went OK… I ended up doing 21 jobs instead of the previous years 33, but the 2022 year workload was insane and a necessity after 2 terrible Covid ‘work’ years (ha, 6 jobs in 2 years). 2024 I have revised it down slightly even further to 15-20 and I already have 4 jobs locked in for 2025. Volume-wise, I have no concerns. Client-wise, as in the type, ditto. I have always been quite picky because otherwise… Kit-wise, struggled again all year long. As a solo, multi-day, hybrid destination wedding shooter, I have some very specific needs. It’s been an evolving process over many years based on the available tech each year combined with my ever-evolving approach and needs. By the close of my 2023 season, I finally cracked it regarding kit with the final conclusion that a 2, 3 or 4 body kit could work equally as well, but glass was the key. L Mount does not give me it so it has been a case of either ditch it totally, or split my photo and video needs into 2 different systems. For 2024, I decided to do just that and then we will see how that goes. My ‘perfect’ set up is with Canon, based around a pair of R3’s, IMO, the ultimate current hybrid body, but I can’t afford so… L Mount for video and Nikon/adapted Tamron for stills: Static video = S1H + battery grip + 70-200mm f4 Roaming video = S5ii + Sigma 28-70mm f2.8 Candid photo = Nikon Zf + 40mm f2 All other photo = Nikon ‘X’ + Tamron 20-40mm f2.8 plus Tamron 70-180mm f2.8 The ‘X’ being either; Z8, Z9, new Z6iii if it is available in time, or even another Zf. Other than that final piece of kit, I’m sorted and happy with all my set up, cameras, lenses, lights, audio etc and I’m well set up also with my motorhome/RV as a home away from home and mobile office. Bring it on ‘24!

2024 is upon us and I have decided to look back before looking forward. How did everyone else's year turn out? Work 2023 has been the busiest year I have ever had, I have shot an even wider variety of events than before as well as small projects such as photoshoots, social media content for clients, etc. This year even logging into this site was a luxury I rarely had. Next year looks like it will be the same as I continue to build a repeat client base across a wider spectrum of project types. Gear Each year my goal is to buy nothing and of course it did not work out that way for me. My biggest purchase this year was to build a new editing workstation. I was having real problems editing the H.265 10bit 422 footage that the R7 and R5 produce and time is money as they say; with so many jobs my workstation became the limiting factor. I ended up building a custom workstation with a Core i9 CPU, 24 cores, 128GB of memory, NVME drives, and RTX 4080 GPU. Most importantly I made sure that the CPU I selected supported QuickSync which can hardware accelerate H.265 10bit 422 footage. This setup with Davinci Resolve finally fixed my Fusion and footage lags once and for all. I also now have access to AV1 with the new CPU which produces almost lossless footage quality. I thought it was going to be a great new codec to use; until I found out Vimeo does not support it even though they say they do (my first AV1 upload to Vimeo stuttered horribly and was unwatchable), and on YouTube the user has to specifically enable it in their profile to enable AV1 playback. I will still probably always upload to my personal YT channel using AV1 but for clients I will need to stick with H.265 or H.264. As many of you already know, my setup is now 100% Canon; R7 (Photo/Video), R5 (Photos), C70(Video) and I use them in that order from a frequency standpoint. The R7 has exceeded my expectations in every way (battery life, Image Quality, reliability, photos, video, rigging options). The R5 is a bit of a disappointment, 95% photos, sometimes a B cam for the R7, or a C cam for the R7 and C70. I probably would be better off with two R7's and the C70 but it is too late now. C70 The C70 is great when locked down on a tripod and especially for long form with XLR audio as an A cam. I am far from a pixel peeper, but for me when looking at the footage after a shoot, its always a bit of a disappointment. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it always seems flatter and duller than the R7 or R5 even though they are all set to CLOG3. I personally think it is a combination of the Canon speedbooster and the Canon EF 24-105 F4 lens that lives on it as well as the fact that I have little or no control over the lighting for most of the events that I shoot. The 24-105mm is underwhelming in all areas, but I just can't seem to find a better lens for the C70; something like the Tamron 35-150mm F2-2.8 I think would be a better lens for the C70 but that's not an option in EF mount. I think the 24-105mm combined with the speedbooster does something to the contrast and saturation that is hard to recover in post. Also, the slightest bit of direct light and the image washes out very quickly due to the speedbooster; and when I say direct light I don't mean direct sunlight, I'm talking even shooting concerts and music videos the image washes out terribly from DJ or music video lights. Needless to say, my setup is not doing the C70 any favors, but as a OMB my setup times are already long as it is. I am thinking about switching to a native RF lens for the C70 but that would be an expensive endeavor. The Canon RF 24-105mm F2.8 is $3K....insanity, it would probably greatly improve the C70's IQ but do nothing for its reach. R5 The 30min recording limit pretty much kills it for anything long form which eliminates it as ever being an A cam even if overheating weren't a concern (which it still is to me). I do shoot b roll clips in a pinch with it or go with the C70 and R7 locked down and shoot the R5 handheld but its rare that I need all 3. The EVF has so much latency that I still miss my 5D4 for photography action shots. Other than the EVF lag, it is great for photography. R7 I've said enough praises about it, but I do find myself thinking a lot about FF equivalency these days when picking up the R7 (more on that in a moment). To my eyes; the IQ out of the R7 and R5 are identical until the R5's second native ISO kicks in, but if the ISO needs to be that high I am in trouble anyway. These days I use an F7 panel light and pretty much never have to go above ISO800 with the R7 combined with the Sigma 18-35 F1.8 EF-S lens. Stability I shoot almost exclusively handheld now. Many projects I don't even bring the gimbal and the few times that I do, I hate everything about it and either don't use it or only use it for one or two shots (long form speedramps mostly). The R7's IS is great, and I no longer try to emulate fancy YT camera movements, I let the action do the moving and just slightly follow it with the camera work. For very short walks (backwards or forwards) I am stable enough combined with IS and sometimes DR warp stabilization that I can pull it off, but needing to walk really isn't as common as you would think for the projects that I shoot. vND Meike Adapter My favorite accessory of all time for the R7 and pretty much any camera I have ever owned has become the vND Meike adapter. No more fiddling with lens ND filters, it is nothing short of amazing. It does add a slight green cast to the footage but it is an even cast, no dreaded X pattern or variable cast. In post I just add 20 to the magenta slider in Davinci Resolve and its fixed. Sometimes the green is complimentary, and IMO gives it a higher end look so depending on the situation I will leave it. My only complaint with the filter is it does not go to zero stops of ND so if you are running back and forth from inside to outside for an event you have to accommodate the 2 stops when you are indoors by raising the ISO. It is also very easy to bump the little wheel and there are no numbers or steps on it to set it precisely to where it was before. FF Equivalency Over the course of this past year I have spent more time than I would like thinking about FF equivalency but not in the way most people do. I personally think the FF "look" is a myth, I have no clue when looking at a shot if it was a FF sensor or not. When I personally think about FF equivalency it is from a lighting perspective. Before arriving at a new venue for a project I always worry that there won't be enough light available and all of my F2.8 FF lenses are no longer F2.8 on the R7 and the Sigma 18-35 F1.8 usually isn't long enough for back of the room type of long form content (dance recitals, corporate events, holiday shows, etc.) so I usually use the RF 70-200mm F2.8 on the R7 for B cam work. The R7 also does not have a second native ISO so it gets noisy pretty quickly after 1600ISO. Those situations and the fact that 60FPS is line skipped (in both the R7 and the R5) sometimes makes me wonder if the R6 II would be as good of a fit for me as the R7. So far the R7 has delivered on every project and my concerns about lighting were overblown, but I feel like its the one thing that adds stress to my day when arriving at a new venue for a new project where I have no control over the lighting. 2024 Demo Reel I also created a new Demo Reel for 2024. This was shot across many years, projects, and camera eco systems. No matter how busy you are, you still need to keep those new customers coming in so I decided to start off the year with a demo reel. Below are all of the cameras that I think I used for the footage in this video. I also uploaded this video using AV1 to YT. Cameras - Canon R7, R5, C70, S5, GH5, C200, R6, GoPro 8 Drones: DJI P4, Mavic Pro, Autel EVO II

Good idea to reflect on the year! My highlights of the year: Bought a Thunderbolt hub and radically changed my home setup I use my MBP laptop for everything, and now have the following setup. When I dock it at home I plug in a USB-C hub which connects it to power, my speaker system, the Resolve dongle, and a few peripherals. When I want to use it "normally" I plug in a Thunderbolt-to-mini-DisplayPort cable that goes to my UHD panel, and the MBP switches to using the UHD panel as the main UI. I can run Resolve in this mode, but it's not the best setup. If I want to run Resolve properly I remove the cable for the display and plug in my new Thunderbolt hub. The TB hub then connects a second 1080p panel I have on my right as the UI and connects the BM UltraStudio Monitor 3G, which is connected to the HDMI input of my UHD panel. When I run Resolve in this setup the UI is to my left, and the UHD panel will be a pure monitor feed set to the correct resolution and frame rate (up to 1080p, which is my timeline resolution). My big purchase was that I did a course on using alternative colour spaces in Resolve with Hector Berrebi It was pretty niche, but really solidified a bunch of concepts that I'd seen in passing or had some familiarity with. There's another course from him coming up in Feb to do with skintones and beauty grading and retouching that I'm really curious about. I bought zero cameras and zero lenses I did two post-pandemic trips, one to Melbourne and the other to South Korea The best investment in my film-making is putting interesting things in front of the camera, and this was definitely that. Discovered how to grade iPhone and GX85 footage to match with GH5 In preparation for the Melbourne trip I did a comparison between the iPhone, GX85 and GH5. It was mostly to rule out the iPhone as a serious camera option. I proved myself wrong and discovered the iPhone is actually incredibly good and useful in post. I worked out a power grade to convert it to Davinci Intermediate and was able to colour grade it just as easily as LOG or RAW. I also discovered that the GX85 is practically as malleable as the GH5 when it comes to small adjustments. Really nailed down my understanding of Colour Management in Resolve This is what enabled me to grade the iPhone and GX85 so well. If you're not using Colour Management then you're basically fumbling around in the dark with boxing gloves on, you've got no hope of doing anything except accidentally discovering a few tricks that seem to work. Discovered I prefer the GX85 over the GH5 The GX85 suits my shooting more than the GH5 because it's smaller, the tilt screen is so much faster/easier to use in busy public places than the flippy screen, and now that I can grade the files just as easily the image is just as good unless I hit the limits of the image (e.g. DR) Switched from MF primes to an AF zoom This was a revolution. I used to shoot with fast manual primes, but in Korea I discovered that the 14mm F2.5 was fast enough for having a natural amount of DoF and had good low-light, and the speed of the AF-S was a real upgrade to my shooting. I have since switched to the 12-35/2.8 and will see how that goes on future trips. Learned a bunch of things about editing I have a huge backlog of previous trips that I haven't edited yet. In fact, the small percentage that have a "final" video edit, I am still quite unhappy with. Overall I have felt like I didn't know what I was doing in the editing, or the colour grade. This feeling isn't completely gone, but I have had a number of realisations about various editing challenges and I feel like I'm almost knowledgeable enough to edit something in a passable way. If I had to sum up, I feel like I'm almost good enough at editing and colour grading to understand what I'm doing in post, and I almost understand enough about post to know what equipment I need in prod.

Fascinating. Super wealthy hobbyists who make fancy home movies think 24p doesn’t look like cinema having never actually made anything with actors or working with a crew and using their family as their evidence of audience approval. Little to no understanding of the difference between acquisition frame rate and distribution or display refresh rate in multiple environments or global territories but still drawing conclusions. So many experts one one place. How lucky we all are.

There were a lot of ups and downs. I launched my own pro-wrestling company in May. It has been very successful so far. I've continued my freelance video work and it has gone well. I'm pretty content where I'm at gear wise. I'll probably upgrade my B and C cams to S5IIs but overall I'm quite happy with the L-mount and feel pretty good about its future. I was diagnosed with kidney cancer. Had my right kidney removed. No more cancer. If my scans look good in April I'll be officially considered cured. Flooding ravaged my community twice. It is still recovering. So 2023 brought some real big highs and some real low lows. If it weren't for the election I'd almost be looking forward to 2024! Happy New Year to all of you!

Agreed, but I'd go one step further. To be perfectly honest, I read/watch half the online stuff about film-making and just shake my head - it's like vast sections of the people discussing this online have forgotten what cinema actually looks like..... if they'd ever even been! Almost any YT search for a camera or lens-related phrase will instantly deliver an endless stream of videos that were shot with kit lists that rival the price of a new car, and yet somehow look more like home videos than my actual home videos. Of course, the biggest issue is that almost no-one in the whole online film-making community actually make films, they're mostly professional or amateur videographers and have clients that want a high-end video look. As a dad that makes home videos, if I think your stuff looks awful then you're in real trouble, and that's how I think most stuff looks these days - until I see something from actual film-makers!

Good year! Gear: I snagged an older Nikon 17-35 2.8 F-Mount lens for $350. Works very well, stabilization and autofocus both work surprisingly well for its age, and it has been a welcome addition to my kit. I also bought an Amaran 60d and snagged a Neewer RGB light for 1/3 its retail price from an auction. No new camera upgrades; 2024 is the beginning of my 3rd year with my Nikon Z6. Work: Started to get some good pay opportunities and get some nice consistent work. Started working for a nonprofit with a great working environment, producing a lot of promotional material. Enjoying this experience. Second-half of 2023 I focused a lot more on broadcast than on cinematography. Crewed some D2 College Football games and even did a basketball game recently. Also tried to learn my way around a 4 M/E switcher. I built a custom video switcher solution using OBS, Central Control, a Newtek Tricaster Control Surface, and a bunch of plugins. I use a cheap Blackmagic Decklink Quad in the mix and it works great given how little I spent on the whole thing. Skills: I feel that my style as a cinematographer became more established; when running and gunning I began to figure out what types of camera moves and whatnot I enjoyed the most and observed a level of consistency with my work which is always nice to see. That being said, I need to push myself more. I don't feel that I grew exponentially especially within the past 6-months. My favorite work of 2023: This one is a Baptism Recap Video I made, shot on my Z6 with the Tamron 45mm 1.8 and Nikon 17-35. All 10 bit prores to my Atomos Ninja Star. Graded in Resolve. I feel that this was the one I pushed myself the most in recently, both in terms of effects but also in learning to get better at sound design. A worship night hype video I made. Funny story: was planning to use my Ninja Star and shoot 10 bit. Accidentally formatted the CFAST Card in the Ninja Star (the ninja star itself formatted the card). I had a lot of files on this card as its 256gb. So refused to use it for the shoot because I had hoped to recover the data from it. In addition, the memory from my XQD Card was almost full, and it was a lot of files I needed to hang onto (dumb me didn't transfer them yet) so I had to resort to 8-bit 1080p 28mbps from my Z6. Video turned out fine, but I don't love the 1080p from my Z6. Does not grade as well as even the 8-bit 4k, let alone the external 10 bit. I will say I was happy with the final output.

I'd just like to clarify my goal: I want the smallest, lightest kit possible to produce either a good enough 1080p (free of fatal flaws like moiré or aliasing) or 4k image. I'm looking for an equivalent of a super 35 f/2.8 image at around 28mm S35 field of view (around 42mm FF equivalent). I'd like to fit it with a variable ND and CPL filters.

Don't need to buy anything this year, I have more cameras than talent. Unless of course Blackmagic or Panasonic release an L mount 8K. That will help take my lack of talent to whole new levels and will be more clearly defined.

@PannySVHSdid you shoot with your Sony F3 at all? 🤣

Happy New Year, dear friends! My year was ambivalent and full of lessons. Film bizz in Germany is very rough and ungrateful if you are trying to enter the field of large narrative projects. I had an accident, a branch falling on my head. They immediately looked for a substitute for the rest of the whole gig and they still have not paid me yet due to some mushy accounting routines. Canceled jobs due to reasons intransparent to me. Got taken advantage by an upcoming director, working for free in advance of a contract. 😂 But I am happy about the things I learned and my passion for video and film is bigger than ever.

Who resists to these small ones? LOL ;- )

To back up another engineering sample of same camera, type of capture device, brand and model already at my own collection arsenal... Impossible to resist :- )

I dunno... I've just invested on a couple of NX500 units bought for US $200 each, my most recent camera purchase ;- )

@herein2020 @FHDcrew well done ; ) congrats guys! - EAG :- ) PS: Mine is a work in progress... : ) Started earlier than 2023, will end later on... (listed on IMDb). Happy New Year to you all!

I've been thinking about my own strengths and weaknesses too, and have started a project designed to let me focus on something that I'm quite weak at with the goal of improving in that aspect. I think that focusing on something in particular and just practicing that might be a good way to build that specific skill. I'm reminded that in sports the coach will have players run drills of the same thing again and again, presumably so they can focus on that one thing without being distracted by the chaos of a normal situation. I imagine the situation is the same with film-making - trying to work on one aspect while also doing all the rest probably doesn't help much in comparison to just focusing on that one thing.

We all have more camera than talent! Anyone who thinks otherwise needs to go back and watch the best examples of their particular niche and then look in the mirror and ask themselves if they really think they are as good at shooting as Deakins, at editing as Murch, etc. I'd watch the work of the masters shot on an iPhone 4 rather than an influencer vlog shot on an Alexa 65 any day of the week. In fact, I highly recommend finding and studying the best examples of your genre. Pull them into an editor and cut them up manually shot-by-shot so you are forced to see what they are doing. I did this, and it completely revolutionised how I view the whole process.

That was an interesting read and I enjoyed your demo reel, thanks.

It is a large list indeed and the filtering is an excellent addition, as otherwise its easy to pick one you didn't mean to pick and by the time you notice its too late. Given the already huge array of customisations in the menu I don't think they've left of the option to select the codec type out in order to simply things 🙂 If they just had an option buried away so you can say which codec to use for 4.2.0 and 4.2.2 is all that is needed, this then doesn't add to the list of selectable recording options. As far as I can tell, Intel CPUs from Kaby Lake upwards support in hardware 4.2.2 at 10bit in HEVC, but do not support 4.2.2 AVC at 10 bit (High 4.2.2), so Panasonic's argument that they do 4.2.2 in AVC because systems would struggle with 4.2.2 HEVC doesn't ring true. Absolutely how it works, but given the target market for these cameras and the starting price already, I'm not sure they gain anything doing this. Their overpriced accessories just drives people to try third party alternatives, so Panasonic lose out completely, whereas if the chargers and replacement batteries were more reasonably priced they would sell a lot more. Generally a mix of photos and video, mostly vacations and family events, the odd wedding I've videoed (not professionally). I tend to enjoy editing it all afterwards and making a short film of the event. As older generations leave us its lovely to have them on video, especially for those family members too young at the time to really remember them.

I work in an industry were the top guys are very well-paid, particularly in stock options. One of my co-workers is into sailboat racing and paid $400,000 for his boat. Another is into flying, and paid $700,000 for a plane. My hobbies are more modest in comparison, especially in recurring costs (it costs a lot to moor a boat or hanger and maintain a plane).

Maybe they're just being polite? 🙂

Dang. Now that I read it on the internet it must be true.

Your arguments are all technically correct, however they fail to understand one critical thing: how it actually appears to humans. There are exceptions of course, but a casual glance through the thread will tell you one thing overwhelmingly clearly - 60p looks awful. Considering that the entire purpose of cinema and TV is to be viewed by humans, this is game over.

I think the LX10 is a brilliant little camera and it is a smart move to use one in its 24 or 25p 4K mode. 🙂

Modern televisions with 100/120 hertz technology are no longer bound to 50 or 60 Hertz. 24p images are displayed at 48, 72 or 120 frames per second. Neither a 3:2 pulldown for NTSC nor acceleration for Pal is needed. A film recorded at 48fps and displayed at 48Hz looks videoish and a film recorded at 24p displayed at 48Hz does not. 24p is still the main standard for feature films all around the world. In Germany and other PAL countries 25p used for narrative TV production, 50p for soccer. Both can be displayed at 50Hz.

As a child of the 1970's would it surprise any of you to know that I grew up MOSTLY viewing motion picture images that were 60fps? And yet I still prefer 24fps. There's a little perspective from a person that's seen both during his entire life and is now an official old fart. So, just to say, that it's not as if younger generations are going to have a dissimilar experience when it comes to 60fps. My guess is that the legacy of 24fps is going to be a thing throughout the 21st century, and most likely will never actually go away; the reasons mentioned in this thread cover why.