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On so many threads, I have to resist the temptation to just say "we should all just buy an FZ2000/2500 and get on with it" but its never far from my thoughts ! Again, its one of those where if they incorporated a couple of things like 10bit and PDAF into a newer version it might get a wider audience. Not bothered about the IBIS because the hybrid stabilisation in it is pretty great.

In the race to 8K, 12K, and beyond, how much resolution do we really need to tell a story? I brought my trusty FZ47 on a little New Year's trip to Arizona, and I think that 640x480 might just be enough: Technical: I scaled up to 1920x1440 (no "smart" or AI rescaling). I did not add any sharpening or softening to the image, and I resisted the urge to clean up the digital artifacts and just embraced them instead. I did however do a little color work. I was actually shocked by how good this footage looks, probably because it's progressive and not interlaced. I think I'd put this footage up against the DVX100, XL1/2, or comparable camera. And as we've seen in the 8-bit grading tests that @kye shared with us, it's kind of shocking how much you can push the image around in post (especially if you are either okay with some macro-blocking, or willing to soften/hide it). I think that's part of what makes this camera so much fun. Is there a unique aesthetic afforded by this low resolution? I'm not sure. I've degraded 1080P footage to have a similar level of detail in the past. The compression artifacts are definitely smaller and easier to hide. But in full motion, I feel like they add a nice texture.

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

I love seeing the reels that everyone has posted! 2023 was a fantastic year, just not for film or video! It was the first year since 2012 where I made 0 video projects. My hope is to spend 2024 getting back to narrative films. The difficulty is finding people with the time and resources to make movies for fun. I did get to take some fun photos. I've used an A7rII for photos the last couple years. My primary lens is a 28mm Nikon AI, which it has been since I bought it 6 or 7 years ago--talk about good return on investment! I attached a couple pictures I took this year. The snowy one is a Canon 24-105, and the others are the Nikon 28. Importantly, my photography kit weighs just 2.28lbs/1.03kg with filter and lens cap, and fits in a pouch on my daypack. Most of my adventures include a lot of hiking, and some rock climbing, so I like a camera that is A) small and light B) not stored in front of me and C) can be retrieved without removing my pack. I did also side/down-grade from a Zoom F4 to an F3 for audio. It's unlikely I'll work on proper productions any time soon. The F3's size and 32 bit are great for recording effects, and for production use I'll velcro it to boom pole next to an NPF battery sled (and then hope whoever is using it while I run camera aims it well). It's overall a better fit for what I do now. For 2024, my plan is to make videos of all kinds. Narrative films, tutorials on video game design (my other creative hobby), videos about DIY projects, and maybe some animation. I'm also interested in building a projector-based virtual set--I did a proof of concept, but I'd need to invest in good backdrops to make it photorealistic. Aside from virtual sets, I have all the gear I need. However, I do plan a couple new items. - A couple lights for narrative films. Probably LEDs that can run off batteries when needed. - Switching my video camera to full frame. Maybe a Z Cam F6 instead of my M4. - Considering lens upgrades. I never owned high quality glass, it's always been borrowed or rented by the production. I might get Sigma Arts--I always enjoyed using them. I look at cinema lens sets every now and then, but honestly I won't get much more out of "real" cinema housings vs 3D printed gears, and you have to go waaay up in price before optical quality rises.

I remember your original post and this is still some of the most compelling footage that I have seen on this site. My working theory is that I think less resolution allows the audience to subconsciously fill in that detail in a way that makes sense to them and sum of their life experience. And the very act of this can make a video more interactive and engaging, kind of like reading a book. And one can argue that this active participation is nostalgic in itself, since a lot of us grew up in the era of film projections and standard definition video. To me, the same idea applies to keeping the monster in your horror film in the shadows until the last possible minute. It is always going to be scarier in the imagination. It's also why we gravitate towards keeping half of the face in shadow. It's been proven that humans find symmetrical faces more attractive and very few people actually have them. But if you don't show half of the face, the audience creates their own idea of a face and oftentimes that is going to be more appealing than the actor's real face. This is why I think that some people look great on camera, but not so much in-person; possibly because we never actually see their whole face in flat light, as is more common in the real world. Here's the same video from the original post, without any processing. To me, it evokes a very different feeling than the original:

Let’s see how long this post stays up. I have started a countdown…

I'm not really one to say... I still shoot ML Raw on a Canon 5D3... I will say that the FZ2500 is hefty. It's kinda like a brick, but it's a solid camera. The all-i 1080p out of it is really nice. I stopped looking at the newer RX10s once they moved away from the constant aperture lens and the built in nd filters. I've only had version ii and I liked it a lot. They also seem to hold their value. The last one i bought used back in 2017, I paid the same amount that i see them listed for now. Here are a couple frames from it...

It records everything internally to an ide drive which everyone swaps out with a €10 adapter to record onto compact flash cards instead.

I don't care who is running the camera division at Panasonic, but would really like to see an EVA1 successor. It will probably be L mount and full frame, which is okay with me. Would love to have the Focus Squares focus peaking from the EVA1. Needs to have a movable viewfinder, or low latency HDMI and SDI ports, and dual CF Express type B cards.

Wow, that's a misleading use of a test chart!

Just thinking further about this, I think that the competition is so hot right now, but for things that have been over-delivered. Upping the resolution from 6K wouldn't be a game changer because it's already more than most people need. RAW can't be improved on. But, do we think that cameras are perfect now? Hell no! So, I think there's tonnes of room for them to make it a huge release, simply by focusing on the things that the entire industry (apart from perhaps ARRI) seem to have put in the too-hard basket. I've been watching Twin Peaks (shot in 4:3 35mm film) on Paramount+ which seems to be streaming in 480p or something, but it just looks incredible regardless. If motion picture film from 1990 being streamed in 480p can look better than a $10K 8K RAW shooting FF camera, then I'd say there's lots of stuff left that can be improved.

The GH6 was definitely a swing for the fences, although unfortunately not a massive hit like the previous attempts, but it did show that Panasonic were still willing to aim big and put in the time and resources. I also think that having the new sensor from the GH6 might help with the GH7, and even if they didn't re-use the GH6 sensor in the GH7, the fact they went through the whole exercise of partnering with a provider, designing it, manufacturing it, and putting it out into a new product might mean there are less barriers to them doing it again for the GH7. When they engaged the sensor manufacturer they might have even signed up for a series of sensors to be delivered over a period, so some sort of incredible GH7 sensor might even be quite a way through the sausage machine already. The proof is in the pudding, of course, but if the GH6 had failed because they didn't even try to be innovative then it would have put the GH7 in a very different context than what actually did happen.

That scenario underpinned the storyline of the excellent 1988 film 'Working Girl', directed by Mike Nichols (of 'The Graduate' fame). One of my favourite movies. I thought that too 🙂 I think that was said (unofficially) at the time, or at least hinted at. Certainly later on Panasonic implied there had been exchanges of technology and development between the consumer and professional video divisions in the GH5 era. None of which is very surprising, really.

Look at The Tiger King. There was tons of old MiniDV, interlaced footage they definitely profited from. It couldn't be further from Netflix specs. Content is king. 😉 I've also seen stuff. Usually, great ideas originate from junior or female managers. Almost always, their ideas are poo-pooed by a senior manager, only to be taken up later with a different "wording" by said senior manager. Classic. Personally, I think this is better new than Panasonic shutting down one or the other division. Who knows? They might find a way to rid themselves of some unneeded employees. I find it amusing they'll start on April first 2024. I'm fairly sure the GH2 was the camera that started all of this. Once hacked, it was getting comparable results to DVX series of cameras. The shit must have hit the fan at that point. I'm fairly sure, starting from the GH4, they had reps from the pro video division having their say about what becomes "consumer" and what doesn't.

I think the demand for Juniors/Interns in that field is probably going to soon drop off a cliff, but I think the demand for Senior Software Developers will remain strong for years to come

Yeah the GH1 was groundbreaking itself, as were the ones after it, the GH4 and even GH5. But the competition is so hot now, GH7 needs something "big" in it. And 8K or raw won't do it. Internal NDs are what we need! (and/or SDI out.... please??)

A better word for them would be parameters. I remember kd lang saying how she used to do performance art but because you can do anything with that it wasn't fun and creative, she then turned to country music and it having so many conventions she was able to mess with it in interesting ways. In improv Jazz music they don't just play whatever, they have a key, a time signature and a riff that they then play around with. It ends up being more creative than it would be. So limitations are good for creativity.

Lol true. My point with 8 vs 10 was that the difference is readily apparent to the naked eye in most shooting conditions without any color grading (though again, it could just be my camera's implementation). From my experience shooting DNG vs ProRes on old blackmagic cameras, I can't say I ever saw a difference. So it's all about diminishing returns.

Yes, very bizarre. I've never seen anything like it in recent memory and am puzzled where the issue is happening--on the SSD itself, in the transfer process across a USB cable, on the motherboard in the USB hardware, transferring data from the USB controller into memory, a bug in the OS that's corrupting memory involved in the file transfer, or a bug in the program I use for the binary comparisons. I did a test yesterday that adds to the confusion. I took my newest T7, reformatted it, and copied all of my digital photos (about 1TB worth) to it. I then ran a bit-by-bit binary comparison and saw several bit compare errors and several missing files in several directories. I ran the same compare two more times and saw the same kinds of errors, but they were in different files! Yes, files that didn't compare previously were now comparing correctly, and files that compared correctly previously were now not comparing correctly. It's always good to compute checksums for important files to verify their integrity. They're not quite as good as bit-by-bit comparisons, because two totally different files have a tiny, but non-zero, chance of hashing to the same checksum. I think I'll try calculating MD5 hashes on all of my digital photo files from their usual location (a 10TB WD hard disk) and do the same for the copies on the T7 SSD and see if the MD5 hashes are always the same. I'll run this in a loop and log the results.

Is there that big of a market for people that are hired by Netflix to make content and want to shoot on $2k cameras as the a cam? Their approved list is only for content they produce in-house. If you want to sell a film to Netflix, you can shoot it on anything you want - and you can shoot some percentage of footage on non-approved cameras as well.

The world needs an interesting larger sensor camcorder IMHO so a new version of the DVX200 with the internals of the G9ii would be a good cross division collaboration.

This is the fine example of a juicy thread ; ) Pity we cannot express all the feelings we have towards what we read. A special mention though to a couple among my favs now @QuickHitRecord@kye despite to never undersestimate the contribution of everyone of you... : ) I think it's one of the flaws here when people tend to neglect any of the voices heard. Every simgle one of you always have something to bring for our lives, so take care of each one of you. Your milestones, presence, daily life, even your beloved ones and part of your being, expressed in your stories posted in these lines, reach some other people here. Maybe not everyone but the ones to count. I believe a bit more of love and compassion for the other one is never enough either. To read this or that had this or that misfortune is something we should meditate about and feel sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings of others, as well share their achievements and joy with zero envy. As much as possible. Even though how human this flaw is, unfortunately. - EAG

This is what Cined said: Personally, I never noticed it that much.

Maybe them merging is good news?? When we consider all the negative infighting between the pro video and consumer divisions (because they pro division was very jealous of the success of the GH series. I bet for instance that's why we never ever saw a Panasonic EVA1 MFT, even though that made 100% sense!). As maybe, just maybe we'll see them now working together?? Bring on the Panasonic EVA2 with L Mount! Yes, Panasonic GH4 was the first non-cinema hybrid camera (as the 1D C was part of Canon's cinema series, although in a hybrid camera form factor). And the Nikon D5/D500 was the first 4K DSLR (as the GH4 was mirrorless).

As a full-time freelancer, it was a rough year for me. I made about 2/3 of what I did in 2022; it was the worst year I've had since 2018. I'm still trying to understand why. It was probably a lack of focus as I helped my wife through her cancer treatments, the last of which was in April (as far as we know, she is cancer-free). Also, I lost a large account -- a relief for my mental health, but it did account for a double digit percentage of my income over the past two years. And I took two personal trips, which meant turning down quite a bit of work (as they say, "take two weeks off, lose six weeks of work"). But yeah, it just felt really slow, especially the Fall/Winter. I've been watching the rise of AI and big jumps in smartphone technology closely, and I am wondering how much longer my skill set will be relevant. It may be time for a change soon, though I can't think of anything that I would rather do. Equipment-wise, I bought a second C70, two RF zooms, a Red Scarlet-X, and an M2 Mac Studio + BenQ monitor. I sold about 50 items that I just haven't been using. I probably have another 10 that I can let go of too. My new reel for 2024:

I will have my nerds eye on this cam. If overheating is manageable for 10min takes with 2min breaks, then it would be interesting. That's an estimate that even rhymes.:) No hurry though. Maybe @SRV1981has settled for one though I would still suggest an og S5, if Hdmi is not needed and size is not a major obstacle.

I have an A6500, so not the A6700, but the A6500 has a reputation for overheating too. I've never had a problem with overheating myself, even during our hot California summers. Big caveat, however: My "takes" are rarely longer than 1-2 minutes, so the camera has time to cool down between takes.

Any A6700 users here? How is overheating in practice from your experience? I havent owned a Sony photo/hybrid camera since a 1/1.8" 5MP CCD camera in 2005, a Cybershot W1. I loved the colours from it. I am thinking about trading some of my unused stuff in for the Sony. Overheating behaviour of the body in 4K recording would be the main criteria, barebones without or blowers attached to the body.:)

I've seen enough corporate shenanigans up close to know that (unfortunately) it's often the case that the political interests and motivations of the people in charge are completely divorced from the purpose of the business, and sometimes, reality itself. For example, I've seen decisions between two options which each had pros and cons get taken to a committee of senior leaders and emerge with the decision of a magical new third option that is clearly worse than either option originally proposed. I've seen this happen more than once across more than one organisation. Let's hope that some semblance of common sense prevails. You'd imagine that the demand for products in a marketplace would help drive things in the right direction just by sheer economics, but you'd be amazed at how isolated and deluded organisational decision-making can be, especially in committee.

If Lumix wants to blow everyone out of the water ( now they have decent AF) they should release a S1H2 and a GH7 with some kind of ND. The S2 would be fine being a high res photo centric version without ND. Also 6K open gate 50p no crop. If they can do that for around 4000€ along with all their other strong points then I’m in.