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I think it falls into the same category as ‘work for free’ as in the reward comes later via other means. Just like shoot a wedding for free to book 2 more at 500 to book 5 at 1k, then 10 at…and by this time next year Rodney, we’ll be millionaires. (UK sitcom reference). Attend these all-expenses covered gigs and treat it as a working holiday in order to build a relationship with Company X which you can then use to: A. Authenticate and market yourself further and gain more subs = more Yo’Tube €£$ B. Go on even more free shindigs to boost the above even further with same or other/more companies. I think as a business model it can work until either one of the components breaks (such as UTube ceases to be a thing) or in some cases, all the fame and fortune goes to their heads and they cook their golden goose…as happened to one wedding photographer I know and who now claims he likes shooting random shit on the beach out of choice because he burnt all his other bridges. Personally, I know my place and prefer to remain a working hack and in control of my own modest destiny.

What I understand now is that working with these YouTubers is extremely hard and I feel sorry for marketing people of camera brands who have to work with them.

It's interesting that the Leica D-Lux 8 has just been announced - https://www.dpreview.com/news/3471020867/leica-continues-compacts-with-d-lux-8-featuring-four-thirds-type-sensor - (looks like same 20MP 4/3 sensor as LX100 ii/D-Lux 7), but with OLED EVF and higher res rear screen, plus USB-C charging). The D-Lux series have always been Leica versions of Panasonic 'enthusiast' compacts, so might an LX100 iii be on the way (as LX100 ii was discontinued a while ago)?

Just watched the Gerald piece. Brands have been pursuing the same format for launches on social media for many years, but maybe they have now jumped the shark. It's becoming easier and easier to see who is in the preferred circle of manufacturer mouthpieces and who isn't, and therefore what's not objective and what is just a sales pitch and straight forward shilling. It has undermined the internet and social media so much, that it's starting to become a turn off for even the most unassuming consumers and customers. We on this forum of course spotted it coming a mile ago, and I think we know how to not get sucked into the hype and just focus on the objective info that comes out of these videos.... although to be honest, usually most of that fits on the back of an envelope even after a 20 minute viewing session. I've been to a few launches myself and it does absolutely on a personal level make it very uncomfortable and embarrassing to come back home afterwards and then be truly critical to an audience of thousands, it feels like kicking a lot of nice camera company people in the teeth. You will lose that access as a journalist (as I have). You might even be bullied into a non-disparagement agreement as was the case with me and a certain Mr Jannard at RED or made persona-non-grata without future access to pre-release hardware as was the case with Sony and now also Panasonic as well. The question for me with Gerald is whether he is truly concerned about any of this, or whether he is being hypocritical. I am assuming the latter given the very close relationship he has maintained with nearly all the major PR agencies and camera manufacturers in our industry for years without ever raising these kinds of conflict of interest and objectivity issues until many years later, i.e. now, and even then, purely because he's butt hurt about not being invited on a fancy trip to Tokyo. On the other hand, props to Gerald for being one of the few Canadian YouTubers who aren't born salesmen / Camera store duo *cough cough*. It makes perfect sense for the camera manufacturers of course to nurture the next generation of salesman by bringing them to the fore on YouTube, rather than nurturing filmmakers, real reviewers and journalists who can say troublesome things like me. Some of the key moments for me... "Why now, why Lumix launch"... I think it's because he wasn't invited. Otherwise, he would have done a video like this about 8 years ago after a Sony launch or a Canon launch. Because the same thing has been going on since about 2012 and the ramp up in YouTube & social media hype of consumer brands. "I'm just sitting at home reading the reviews"... This is him painting himself as a casual observer, and therefore an objective one. "Didn't get invited to the S5 II launch in Japan, didn't get invited to S9 launch, because I was critical of GH6"... Exactly, but had he been invited to those - would he still be putting his superman cape on and making a video like this? Nope. Because in the end he has always been 100% happy to benefit from early access and press trips when it suited him, the sanctimonious bastard. Sorry... not very polite of me, but then I aint Canadian.

Nice of him to spill the beans after only 10 years of benefiting personally from such beans. What's next... A pivot to reviewing Macs?

AFAIK, it doesn't have PDAF - it's basically an updated LX100 ii. Now a black and silver LX9 or LX1 with the 4/3 25MP sensor and processing from the G9ii (albeit with inevitably short recording times) would be far more interesting - 21MP stills, PDAF, lens OIS plus great EIS, no-crop 4k and excellent FHD? I'm not holding my breath though, even though I think that's what Panasonic really need to appeal to the upmarket end of the 'cute camera' market as well as the enthusiast compact market.

Cheers for sharing this new YouTuber! I've been watching some more of his videos, he's quite good / entraining. Am surprised he only has a few hundred subs. I mean he makes some decent points why the Pyxis is "better". And if he is in financial strife, and is underwater with the Komodo-X, then is he necessarily going to admit that to his followers? And as he mentions in a more recent video, for his client base he doesn't need a RED Komodo-X: I mean if you think it is wild to sell a Komodo to get instead a Blackmagic Pyxis, then you'll blow your mind if you watch these videos of people selling their RED Komodo for instead a Sony FX3 (or an a7Smk3, or even a FX30):

You’d have to question the business wisdom of such a trip that took out at least 7-8 days out of working time when you factor in prep, travel and jet lag recovery. Yes the travel, accommodation and likely some sort of PD was involved but without an actual fee, how is the loss of earnings for those days covered ? Even if you factored in the “long term” loan of the camera being so long term that they allow you to sell it then a $1000 spread over 7 days isn’t much of a day rate. I don’t think the argument of exposure and views compensating holds up either. The gold rush era of making YouTube camera videos and becoming relatively rich is in the rear view mirror now. Thats why so many of them are pivoting to other areas. The days of these get rich quick Beverley Shillbillies will hopefully be a thing of the past pretty soon.

Plus there is this thing that ‘no publicity is bad publicity’…and whilst I am not sure I entirely agree with that sentiment, in this case it has probably raised more awareness of the S9 than there might otherwise have been. I didn’t really care about the release initially but since the controversy, have looked a little deeper (more at the camera than the shenanigans BTS) and could make a case for it in my lineup. Not a strong enough case at this time, but that otherwise I would not have bothered with had their not been the controversy. Also, the CC’s can make ‘reaction’ videos 🤪

Because a mirrorless sensor is huge, which thus needs a HUGE lens to have a comparable zoom range as the typical camcorder has. The vaguely closest thing might be the smallest of the mirrorless sensor, a MFT, in a camcorder. And we've had that, the Panasonic DVX200. It's very compact! But yet still a lot bigger than what your typical family (grand)parents / tourist holidaymakers / etc would like to use. I'd say the modern camcorder of today is the fairly awesome Sony PXW-Z90V, it's a (semi)professional grade camcorder. And super compact. https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1362802-REG/sony_pxw_z90v_pxw_z90_4k_hdr_xdcam.html Or if looking for a cheaper consumer grade camcorder, then the equivalent is the Sony FDR-AX700. https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1362622-GREY/sony_fdr_ax700_b_fdr_ax700_4k_camcorder.html This. Even though compact cameras (be they P&S or superzooms) have also been squished by smartphones and mirrorless, they still are quite an appealing alternative to a camcorder today. Back in the day old school camcorders made sense partially because the video from P&S cameras were so terrible (or non-existent!). But today if I wanted better video than my cellphone, but wanted something smaller / less obvious than a mirrorless / DSLR, then why would I pick a camcorder?? I'd probably go with a camera such a Sony RX100 or Panasonic LX100 or Fujifilm X100 or Nikon Coolpix A Then I get better video and a great stills camera too, and it's more compact / more incognito than a consumer grade camcorder is! If I need more zoom than one of these P&S cameras, I'd probably go for a Nikon Coolpix P900 / Panasonic FZ1000 / Sony RX10 / Nikon Coolpix A900 / Panasonic FZ80 / etc instead. They're super cheap on the secondhand market, and again, they're good stills cameras too! I have good news for you! You can get a Sony HDW-F900R for less than a thousand bucks these days, far less than the hundreds of thousands of dollars they used to cost: https://www.ebay.com/itm/226158157074

It's all branding and marketing, including this video from Gerald. I'm surprised so many people buy into it. Look, the dude humble bragged about how he takes these trips and then just hangs out instead of filming anything, but he gets most passionate when he starts talking about how he wasn't invited on the last Japan trip for the Lumix S5II and now this trip, with Lumix directly telling him that they just didn't think he'd like the camera. Most of the rest of his video was just acknowledging what we've all been saying for years and what Gerald himself has benefited/profited from, he just thinks it's an ethical problem because he's no longer on the list of people Lumix wants to play nice with. There's absolutely truth in what he is saying, but let's be clear: if Gerald cared about ethical camera reviews he'd still be getting cameras from a local camera shop to test instead of having relationships with these companies. If he'd still kept doing that he'd never had been able to make a living doing YouTube though. Did he really ever think these companies viewed him as anything other than a mark they could exploit to market their products to people or was he just happy to be part of the game until other companies not named Sony decided to allocate their marketing resources to other reviewers? Today it's easy to put Panasonic on blast. He sees the writing on the wall. He really has nothing to lose, his channel has predominantly been Sony focused for the last several years anyway and, honestly, it wouldn't shock me if this marks a change in his channel in general as the YouTube camera reviewer bubble seems to have burst or bottomed out for a lot of people. Views are down even on his Sony videos. If nothing else he has seemingly successfully branded himself as the lone moral voice in the camera/gear space, as far as YouTube is concerned.

Put 30 experienced artists in a room with 1 newly graduated art critic, it will be the art critic who will be considered the expert. I wonder how Gerald Undone figures in with that? I cannot help but hear a bit of hypocrisy in what he says.

With regard to the objectivity and competence of these “reviewers”, I thought we’d put that to bed on here a few years ago. Never forget the absolute pile on suffered by @Andrew Reid for raising the blatant shenanigans that Canon were up to and the lengths that we both had to go to in proving it definitively. Did any of these clowns apologise ? No, they just made follow up videos about it to generate more clicks ! Oh but jokes about kittens right ?

I've got one for me (personal use, remember). I'm not travelling (and probably stay on this way for a long time), but I'm in a quest for years on how to quickly change my camera from "stills, in a neck strap" to "in a gimbal for movies with an ND" in the shortest amount of time during a trip. The last solution was: - Using the Falcam magnetic anchor links on the strap (much faster than the Peak Degin ones); - Put the ND filter on the lens from a belt pouch using magnetic rings; - Get the gimbal (since I use the X-S20 + Sigma 18-50 f/2.8, both very light, now is a Scorp Mini ginmal), which already have a quick release, all already calibrated for the combo; - Mount and shoot. All very quick, except getting the gimbal from the back and unlocking it. But much better than previous attempts. Then I saw that 80% of the shots that I use the gimbal during trips are wide-angle ones. And then the Pocket came to mind. Never was interested before because of the smaller sensors (albeit when researching the 3, saw a lot of examples from the 2 and the image quality was better than I expected), but with the 1 inch sensor of the 3, I was interested. Got one, and will sell my gimbal. Wide shots, will use it - tighter shots, will use the X-S20 handeld, with IBIS and maybe extra stab in Resolve. Much less fussy, much faster to change "modes". Did not use the Pocket 3 a lot, but already impressed. Yes, the image of the X-S20 is better, but the difference is much closer than expected. And in a concert that I went recently, the image was good enough (just using D-Log with a Rec709 lut appllied 50%), and the internal mics TROUNCED the Andycine little shotgun that was using on the X-S20. (my play was to get the Creative combo to use the DJI Mic 2 as a standalone 32bit recorder on the X-S20 hotshoe, but the comb was sold out). This guy have a series of videos about the Pocket 3 - and use it in a very interesting ways:

Gerald just put out an incredible video talking about YT camera reviews, reviewers, manufacturers, and how the whole thing works. He talked about brands specifically and how they have treated him, including Panasonic punishing him for a YT title, Canon, Fuji, Sony, etc. The good, the bad, and absolutely the ugly. He also gave a pretty comprehensive and level-headed-sounding overview of how it works. If all you want to do is complain about everything (which is most people online sadly) then you can skip the nuanced parts of his video and just get to the gossip about each brand (that's what it is after all...) but the whole thing seems well thought-out.

great questions! let me ask you this hypothetical, if you got an email that said "we'd like to fly you out to Japan all expenses paid and let you play with a new unreleased camera with a bunch of your friends for a week" would you accept? i even told LUMIX i am not in the niche like i used to be when i did Kinotika and Indy Mogul and they still wanted me there! As for making money off views, I actually made a video that got more views than most the other people who were at the S5 II release last year. I made $100. I didn't make the video to even make money. I made it for fun. Because I thought it was an interesting story to tell about Panasonic finally adding phase detect to their cameras.

I don’t think the ad revenue argument stands up to any scrutiny to be honest. Have a look at the views for all of the S9 videos. YouTube pays what these days, $2-3K per million views? Big channels covering it such as PetaPixel have broke 100K views but the rest are mainly sub 20 and 30K. I’s be surprised if the total viewership from all of the attendants broke a million views so I don’t think anyone is making money on ad revenue. As I said, those days are gone and these numbers are indicative of it. The first dozen or so times I went to do work in Japan, I didn’t see any of it either. Thats why I went back on holidays there. The only reason I could do the latter was because I got paid for the former. No one was getting my work time for free and no one was getting any of my holiday time for free either. If someone has paid me to go on holiday but expects me to attend a seminar, bussed around on a few organised days of photo opportunities and then produce a video about their product in a deadline no less then I either haven’t really been on holiday or I’ve allowed myself to be paid a negligible rate. It would be akin to going on a free “holiday” from a timeshare company. In the imaging industry there has been a race to the bottom fuelled by the initially creeping and now virtually ubiquitous expectation that people should work for the exposure and the networking opportunity so I find it out of order that people are aiding and abetting the practice for a manufacturer. When the practice now actually begins with the manufacturer, how will that situation improve for anyone who they want to sell the product to? In the past decade or so, malignant interests have bought off politicians in the UK and other countries and it’s a toss up between what has been the more surprising; the ease with which it has been done or how little it actually costs. I suspect many manufacturers (not just of cameras) view their relationship with many YouTubers in exactly the same way.

What's better for you in general? Playing with gear or actually making motion picture stories with gear? Personally, I don't fault either. I'm more the former if I'm being honest. If you're tech head and like get excited about that, go for it. If you're a true creative and that's your priority, that's fine too. I have my biases about online freelance marketers, but a few of them seem to have eventually evolved into trying to be real filmmakers and left the influencer game behind. Curious about your perspective.

I went to Japan and have the loaner S9 from Panasonic. I told them I am not in the camera review space like I used to be, and they still were kind enough to invite me. I plan on making a few videos with it, but haven't posted anything since the embargo because I am so unsure what to say. It seems everyone has already made a "First Look" video and many others have tried to apologize for accepting the free trip and camera. I don't feel bad for accepting the trip as I'm sure anyone else here would do also. I think all the conversation around this is generally healthy for our industry and why I personally took a step back from it all over the last two years after quitting Indy Mogul. Feel free to ask me anything you want. I promise to be honest.

I would be happy to have a GH5 II image and codecs in a LX or GX camera. Fun fact, a S16 width variante of the G9II sensor with 4 to 3 aspect ratio would still sport more than 12 MP and more slightly more than 4096 px width. A LX100 body with the lens mechanism of the LX10 would be perfect for that and the monitor of the LX10 or GX80. Perfectly dreaming.:)

A Komodo and a Pyxis are much closer aligned with each other in terms of the shoot style / market niche they're targeting, than a Komodo and a Sony FX3 / a7Smk3 is as they're even further apart. The probably is that ZCam is still positioned in the same place in the market as where Blackmagic was a decade ago. So moving to ZCam is an even riskier bet.

Has anyone heard about the S9 have or not having Adobe to Cloud (frame.io) features? I know it doesn't have the proxies, but I wasn't sure about the Adobe connectivity. Also, with Adobe Lightroom CC, is it possible to have jpeg's directly go into your library on your iPhone? I'm not a user, but I thought someone might know. Finally, can you set it up to send photos directly to the phone after each shot, much like tethering? So far, I've only seen people selecting thumbnails. For me, that is rather difficult and this is the part of the process that I've always dreaded. You simply cannot see wether it's a good shot or not. I think it would be better to send everything automatically and delete later the ones I don't want... much like you can currently do on the S5ii with the integration of frame.io.

I went for a walk with my og Bmpcc yesterday, mounted with a 25mm lens. Handheld shooting without rigging was quiete a challenge and a lot of fun. Color response in grading is still impressive. I imagine the 5D3 to be on par with it. In that case I would prefer it over any Sony or Pana dslm in regards of sheer beauty under natural light or 5600K fixtures. S1 and S1H impressed me in lit scenarios though under tungsten btw. I bought a 5D3 1.5 years ago and it's waiting for party time.

I'd imagine this would make MrSMW very happy! https://www.l-rumors.com/samyang-is-recruiting-influencers-to-be-the-first-to-experience-and-own-samyangs-first-l-mount-lens/ There might also be a Sigma f1.8 full frame zoom coming? https://www.l-rumors.com/worlds-first-f-1-8-full-frame-autofocus-zoom-lens-is-coming-soon-from-sigma/

I like this conspiracy theory! Sounds fun. Wasn't there a rumor recently about the Panasonic S1H mk2 being not too far away? https://www.4kshooters.net/2023/03/23/leak-suggests-panasonic-s1h-ii-may-have-8k-phase-detection-autofocus/ https://www.l-rumors.com/l2-first-rumored-panasonic-s1h-ii-specs-8k24p-and-built-in-nd/ Oh noes, don't kill the fun with facts before it has even started! 😞 In a hopeless attempt to keep the conspiracy alive.... maybe there was a leak from BMD themselves? Someone outside BMD knew they were planning a big price cut to move out old stock after the launch of the Blackmagic Design PYXIS Yeah, that's how we first saw for sure confirmation of the S9, because an Amazon listing for handgrip/cage was up for it. Yes I would have thought then it makes more sense to be doubling down on the Panasonic LX15 / LX100 series. Bring out their next generation of them. They're "large sensor" P&S cameras, but to be fair, still smaller than the X100 sensor. But if Panasonic brings out an APS-C sensor camera, that's very unusual, it would be a bit confusing for Panasonic branding? They've never had recently an APS-C camera (wellll... technically the Varicam LT I guess was the most recent one?? ha), as Panasonic has been all about MFT or "Full Frame". It's just a backlash against the slick looking perfect images, and looking backwards to go retro. That's why those old CCD P&S cameras are selling for sky high prices.

You're right friend, but if he intends to buy or rent gear by himself then he'll transform into a "retro gear reviewer" outside the consumerist agenda of big camera brands. I've left him a message in his comments section saying he wants to be treated like a tech journalist when companies like Canon and Panasonic classify his and his collegues chanells in the Marketing department. Those are two very different beasts. Tech journos want to review the product ASAP. Marketing guys want you to be 100% positive with your piece to produce more sales. It's that simple. He didn't play nice with the Marketing guys and they cut him. By their logic that's valid. By youtuber logic it's a travesty.

Sounds about right…also being a resident 🤪

I'd like to see Panasonic have success with this and increase market share -- to go on to release another compact with a much faster reading sensor + evf to outcompete Sony's A7C II (429g body). That is more appealing to me as a compact travel camera (of course much more expensive). Sigma's contemporary primes strike a great weight/performance balance and are just waiting for something way beyond the FP line to pair with on L mount.

Have been messing around with a friend's XA50 and love the AF, cLog3 and above all... the form factor. The process becomes solely about composition and storytelling. Anyway here's a frame I grabbed after shooting with it for about 2 minutes...

I think Gerald does a good job. There isn't enough time for someone to both test every camera, and test any one camera thoroughly. If I'm thinking about buying or renting a piece of gear, I try to see reviews from both people who use that gear a lot, and from people who have used a lot of gear. It's impossible for that to be the same person. For example, I've there are people who have never touched an expensive lens in their life heaping praise on the flood of budget cine-style lenses (Laowa, DZOFilm, Meike, SLR Magic, etc). And they might be a legit artist who makes really good videos with those lenses. However, it's not that useful for a purchasing decision for someone to say Meike lenses are good, when what I really want to know is how it compares to the competition. I've seen people say how great the optics are on the only lens they own, while taking great images of great looking scenes, but I see other tests showing all kinds of problems compared to other lenses for the price. And then, by necessity, the person who has made the comparisons between 50 lenses spent all their time comparing lenses and not making art. So it takes both kinds of people to get a complete picture of anything. I would never take art advice from Gerald, but his reviews are great for that comparison overview. As long as you keep in mind what info you can and can't get from what he says.

To add... anytime gear becomes the center of discussion, there always ends up being flame wars. This camera is better than that camera. The features on my camera beats the features on your camera. My dick is bigger than yours. Blah, blah, blah. And the videos from YT get celebrated for it. If GeraldUndone posts a video about whatever technical, resolution achievement it becomes a fact and a must have. If Zedlin, a working Hollywood cinematographer, posts a video about how and why filmmakers are chasing the wrong thing... he's considered a dipshit.

I always took that as tongue-in-cheek and as a device to add a bit of humor to what would otherwise be relatively dry videos of somebody showing him a bunch of lights on lightstands, etc.

First, I should say I like Gerald Undone's videos and I watch most of them. My criticism of him is that he portrays himself as an expert in 2 fields: 1) cameras; 2) YouTube setups (he walks around with a clipboard grading them). Now with this video, he is adding to his repertoire and he sounds like he portraying himself as a "moral expert" when it comes to the relationship with companies. Again, Gerald, the expert, and, as you know, "we should all listen to experts". I'm not a fan of "experts," maybe after watching F or Fake. It might sound like I'm being excessively harsh on him and I'm sure there are many who are much less of an "expert" than him, but I don't like that attitude. I think he's full of crap when it comes to him explaining how he takes the moral high road. I think he too, will take the cash when shown. That's just my opinion.

I don't think the Panasonic S9 pulls anywhere near the shenanigans that Canon pulled on the R5 "overheating". That was an ultimate low for the cripple hammer. I do hear reports of reviewers saying the S9 can successively restart recording up to 6 times. If that it so, just put the usual 30 minute limit on it and a 2-minute wait to restart.

You're right. He always tries to be "the guy" for camera reviews, the one who's going to tell how things really are and "should you get it". I'd probably agree that many of his conclusions are valid, but it cannot be understated he NEVER actually shares ANY footage as a creator. It's almost like he can talk forever about a language, but never really speaks it. As a language teacher myself, I know there are many teachers who are guilty of this (if that makes sense).

I have been steadily unsubscribing from so many YouTube channels in recent months because I have become tired with all the BS. New camera reviews (which tend to be previews) that are based on an all expenses paid trip, have seen the biggest cull. Sorry, but I just do not believe for one second that you cannot be anything but biased if you know you are unlikely to be invited on another if you don’t say only, or at least mostly, positive things. Zero issue with folks chasing free trips, sponsorship or making a living however you wish, but I don’t have to support it and I don’t by clicking the unsubscribe button. If I’m going to delve into reviews, it’s going to be from folks who bought the thing with their own hard earned and happens months after the launch and after extensive real world testing, ie, almost certainly working pros rather than content creators who by the very nature of their chosen path, need to flit from bush to bush like butterflies. This does not mean I cannot be interested in the launch of a new product or have hopes and desires for Future Product X, but simply a case of not being sucked into the hype.

This was a confusing watch, honestly. He started out by saying viewers put too much value in the trips, yet he is clearly irked that he has been snubbed by Panasonic and not brought on them. 99% of his viewers will never be flown to an exotic location, put up in a nice hotel, and otherwise have the red carpet rolled out for them. That he tries to act like they aren't a big deal (despite his clearly being irked at being left out) shows how much of a disconnect there is between people like him and the rest of us. I don't doubt that he's being honest about Lumix BUT I've pointed out in the past on here how biased Gerald's titles are when it's a Sony camera versus when it's other brands. Examples: As a consumer I don't like it, but if I'm looking at it as the marketing person for these other camera brands and I saw how much of a shill he has become for Sony (and he can argue all he wants that he's the most critical of Sony out of every other company he reviews, it isn't true) I'd probably not bend over backwards for him either. His broader message about being disposable to these companies I agree with, but he played the game, helped create the beast, and still, to an extent, continues to be a part of the problem.

That was Paul Cook - https://vimeo.com/paulcook and https://www.paulcookfilm.com/

The filmmaker that made the WW2 5Diii/ML Raw video. Yeah Pete Ohs is pretty interesting actually. His past 3 or 4 films he has made on his own after getting a "real" budget to make a movie and hating the process, so he took his 5D3, casted some actors and wrote a very loose script that they wrote/rewrote each morning before filming. He makes a movie a year. I believe he edits on a livestream and people watch and may make suggestions... or he did with Jethica.

Wish I had more money. Emmanuel, this looks fantastic, and I just mentioned it in another thread so I thought I'd come here and state the same thing... As much as I like the image from these BM cameras... and this is just gorgeous... I am starting to notice when I look around at the low to no budget film community that everyone is using a BM camera now and everything looks the same. It seems the influencers on YT have developed a canned cinematic look, that although looks nice, it's also rather boring looking in some ways... or I guess the better way to say it is that it looks too similar to everything else. But... I really must say that it looks fantastic and if I had the money, I would have ordered one by now, especially at this price.

As I have written about before, the best film-making advice I ever got was to try to the most contrast and saturation into my images. Once you can push really far then it's easy to not push as far, so it's like doing altitude training, and you don't know the limits until you hit them. As such, here's a very heavy grade of some night footage from the GX85 and 12-35mm F2.8 zoom. This shows just how far 8-bit 709 footage can be taken. It's not free from artefacts, but then again, I see grading issues semi-regularly on Netflix, so... SOOC: Grade: In terms of how far this is pushed, lots of films get into this territory.. I concentrated a lot on matching tones across shots and it was pretty fiddly at times, but I was pushing things. Realistically I think there's a bit more in the footage and the limitation is my grading. It's worth pointing out that this was done in Resolve 18, so no Film Look Creator, and no third-party plugins so no FilmConvert, no Dehancer, etc, so some of the things I did might not be the best tools. When Resolve 19 goes out of beta I'll be rocking the Film Look Creator and Colour Slicer etc, which I think will make this stuff so much easier.

4k/UHD video = 8MP stills which I think is perfectly fine even on a large screen at normal viewing distance. One of my favourite photos (which other people have also liked) is only a 2MP JPEG, taken in 2015 with a Pana G6 while simultaneously recording FHD video. It's the light, shade and the sweep of the glinting rails that makes it work, not the resolution:

I'd be glad to add something with my recently-acquired Komodo-X or my C70, but there's no way I'm ever going to refer to my camera as a "beast." I shot a 48hfp thing with the K-X this last weekend and I definitely want to have more excuses to shoot with it and get comfortable before my next planned shoot in June.

f900 with a hj 22x. your shoulder and back will enjoy the combo. lol.

Heavens above! I am enjoying this camera (AX53) so much! The zoom is fabulous. The size and convenience coupled with the internal stabilisation and - I might be repeating myself - that zoom is a winning combination. Yes, the image isn’t up there with the best but one wouldn’t expect it to be. But as a tool to take out, have some fun and create some images to enjoy it’s fabulous. I’m glad I stumbled into this thread!

PS... order placed with cvp so we'll see how it works out!

...which is why most non-enthusiast users would buy a decent phone and use it record video (the cost of an AX53 would pay for a pretty decent phone). The phone is very likely smaller than a camcorder and you definitely won't stand out in the crowd (even with a phone on a small gimbal). Camcorders have their niche, but it's been squeezed from both ends for years - at the lower end, phones and compact cameras getting decent video, MILCs at the other end. The AX700 has a modern 1" stacked BSI sensor with PDAF, but it's 116×89.5×196.5mm (W x H x L) and about 1 Kg. The small sensor AX53 is 73x80.5x161mm and about 600g. They're not especially small and light.

It's because if you have larger sensor the optics get larger as well - the sensor in the AX53 is 1/2.5" size - this is very small and allows an internal 20x zoom to be fitted inside a small (but not tiny) body. Put in a 1" sensor (which is about 4x the sensor area) with an internal x20 zoom lens and the body would get much larger and heavier. The next level up in the Sony range is the AX700 with a 1" sensor but only a x12 zoom - it's around 2x the weight and 2.5x the price. That takes it into the price area of a good MILC with a superzoom lens e.g, the A6700 with 18-135mm lens bundle is about the same price as the AX700, but has an APS-C sensor with 4x the area of a 1" sensor, weighs less and can record 10-bit 4:2:2 4k60p & 4k120p video.

My vote is for Cinemartin 🤪