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Too true. Arri targets the feature film and commercial industry. Those industries have absolutely no incentive to use BM or anything cheaper. The rental cost of an Arri is one of the smallest line items in their budgets. Why would they experiment with something that saves a few bucks on the rental when they have years of experience, trust, rigging etc all geared around their usuals cameras of choice? You technically could shoot a movie with a BM camera or an FX30 or a bunch of other cameras, but why would you unless you need something small for a specific shot? It's like saying your such and such street car can go the same speed on a drag strip as an F1 car so they're going to dominate the F1 industry here pretty soon. Um, no. Why would they?

I don't even think they lack in resolution. There are old cameras with 1080p that still look good to me, among them the original BMPCC, C100, and the GH3 (and hacked GH2). They might not have the higher resolution or the DR of cameras today, but they have pleasing images that hold up. In fact, from a pure image standpoint, the BMPCC was my favorite camera I've ever owned. It's the other quality of life things that made me move on more than the resolution or dynamic range. Other cameras had a "good enough" image, but better battery life, IBIS, auto focus, audio preamps, etc. were all worth the trade off. I could pull out my GH5 with minimal rigging and get 2 hours of record time, amazing IBIS, good enough auto focus, and all the other things that made my job significantly easier.

The 'n-stops of IBIS' ratings are based on shooting stills. They are a comparison of 'how low a shutter speed can we hand-hold and get a sharp image' so it's about the image being as 'locked down' as possible. The behavior of IBIS in video mode is normally different, where usually it looks much better if it's 'floaty' to a reasonable extent. Also everyone holds and moves the camera differently, so video IBIS behavior that works great for one person might not work as well for another. You really have to try the camera and decide if you like the video IBIS behavior.

Yes, it's a version of the 'no one gets fired for buying IBM' situation - it's all about minimizing the (large) financial risks in high-end production. A very different situation from a one/few person production company doing filming and post-production in-house with their own relatively low-cost workflow (e.g. using Blackmagic cameras and software).

Exposure was different in many of those shots, Panasonic was brighter. Thus the highlights blowing more than the Sony. Matching all the settings for a comparison is great but it's of limited use when the two cameras have their ISOs rated differently. The S5IIX sensor was introduced with the A7III back in 2018! Not a new sensor at all.

It depends on what you want to do with them of course. For me personally, the GH5 was kind of the 5d mkii of the photography world. It was the marker when image quality hit the "good enough" metric. For most work, shooting with the GH4 will still be a frustrating experience image wise. Not to say it can't produce good images, it's just very limited compared to modern alternatives. The GH5 was where cameras really hit a "I can get 75% of what a 2024 camera can get most of the time" kind of reality. That being said, if your standard is low and you are just looking for a sharp image and some basically decent color, the GH4 will be fine.

It does involve a crop, and for best results you need to use a shutter angle of 45 or 90 degrees, not the more typical 180. This will make your footage look a bit choppy but that's easily fixed by adding back motion blur with Resolve. An advantage is that gyro stabilization also reduces rolling shutter artifacts. As always, the best stabilization is external: tripod, gimbal, or steadicam. Not even the best IBIS or gyro stabilization can beat it, although IBIS can stand in for a tripod on non-moving shots. It's once the camera starts moving that external stabilization beats everything else.

The price for a brand new one and going to the correct counter at the airport and declaring it to customs is £630 versus £899 in a UK store so its still a massive saving. And I always go to the correct counter ... Funnily enough, the new ones seem to have gone short supply there too and I'm wondering whether its to do with them bundling them with the S9. The S9/28-200mm bundle works out at a fully legal import price of £1524 versus the S9 body only price in the UK of £1499. Thats a lot of lens for £25 ! For anyone who is looking for the S9/28-200mm bundle without the travel and who don't mind a dealer who is a "parallel importer" then Cotswold Cameras have the bundle for £1699 https://www.cotswoldcameras.co.uk/Panasonic-Lumix-S9-Digital-Camera---28-200mm-f-4-71-Macro-OIS-Lens-Black I have never dealt with them so have no idea about dealing with them but the Trustpilot reviews are here. https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/cotswoldcameras.co.uk It not until December so I should be able to comment on its weather resistance (or not!) too.

This was true with RED and yet it barely made any penetration into the industry. It almost makes you think that the image coming out of the camera isn't the thing that determines the fate of the brand.....

I have always been fascinated by complex systems, and film-making is one of them. It includes having an understanding of: perspective and composition and camera movement optics and optical design analog electronics digital electronics data compression colour science editing concepts and the manipulation of time such as montage, cross-cutting, jump cuts, etc sound design music aesthetic perception such as colour theory, psychoacoustics, symbology, culture storytelling and explicit and implicit forms of communication like words and body language emotion and memory etc ..and more importantly it involves learning how each of these effects the others, and how to manipulate each of these elements within its domain in order to create a coherent and affective end product. In that sense, the fact I end up with home videos is only a part of the equation, and my goals are both to make them and learn about this system and what it can tell us about the world. I'm still thinking about this one but I think it really depends on how you do it. People seem to have a good intuition about cameras, and if the lens is sticking out a long way and you're pointing it exactly at them and moving to follow them then they'll know 100% you're filming them specifically, but if you change any of these then it's far less confronting. Perhaps the opposite of that is to pick a composition and hit record and just stand there and let people walk through your shot. If you look at something behind them and act like you don't see them then they're just as likely to assume you are shooting what is behind them. If you have your hands on the camera and are focusing on it then they might assume they've just walked through your composition and you'll wait for them to pass and then try to take a photo. The fact you didn't hit the shutter button while they were in front of it probably signals to them that you didn't take their photo. In aesthetic terms, I'm not particularly interested in taking telephoto shots of random people. To a certain extent the street cinema aesthetic leans more towards the idea that the city is the subject and the people are like ants, anonymous and scurrying and flowing in a mass like water within the larger environment, or that the city is empty and people aren't there, or if they are there then they might be alone, etc. These leanings are far less confrontational to shoot. In a sense if you want to capture the spirit of a place, the way it makes you shoot would be an ingredient in that, so would be aesthetically relevant. Wow, I had no idea it was prone to overheating. Interesting. That skews me towards the BMMCC if I go that direction.

The gap has really closed, and the fx3 is just an A7sIII, which at this point is a 4 year old camera. A camera that came out last year should be close to a 4 year old one!

Like with your GH5 post the other day, almost all cameras made in the last 10 years are capable tools that can produce nice images. It doesn't mean though that you should go out and buy a GH4 in 2024. There are plenty of "quality of life" improvements that have occured since the GH4's release that make it a lot less desirable camera compared to something like the GH5 or S1. We're blessed to be at a point where we could use a 10 year old camera and still get good results if we HAD to, but let's not pretend that the cameras that have come out since aren't significantly better in every way. IBIS alone radically changed the way I film and work.

I read the title and thought your S5ii had been naughty. On my next holiday, I’m taking the camera and buying the lens when I get there. So, I’ll be taking the Sigma Fp and buying the Panasonic 28-200mm lens for the typical used price in Tokyo of around £400. The big draw for the Fp is that this lens is optically stabilised and is an appropriate size for it. It’s not the fastest but that keeps the size down and it’s a great range for travel. The beauty of the Fp is the modular nature so I can take off the EVF to strip it down to go with a couple of the fast compact M mounts I’ve got that I’ll take as well. Incidentally, for anyone interested in this lens and the S9 then Panasonic are bundling them together and the lens then works out at around £400. Like with the Fp, that’s a good package for a full frame roll your own cinecorder.

I´ve been using my BMPCC again the last couple days. Yesterday I could hardly see anything when I was filming outside under the bright summer sun. But I still managed to grab some beautiful shots. It would be my dream pocket camera with good battery life and screen. That and with 2.5K 60p plus full Hdmi and it would be my dream cinema camera perse. The image quality is just so much fun to work with and so is the challenge of non nonsense no ibis operation. Make it a 3K camera. 3K sounds cool and makes it great to be distinguished from the ordinary 4K crowd. From my experience the camera does not only shut off because off an empty battery but also due to overheating under even mild conditions. A Fairchild Pocket 3K with 60p, good battery life and screen, how cool would that be! What a cool name, Fairchild 3K! 🙂 In my bag this weekend are my Bmpcc with a 25mm and my Panny LX15. I would add the 14mm plus Vari ND.

This is how it felt for me with the seemingly to be onetaker "Birdman". Look at me, I´m the D. O. P.! It worked- the dop got an Oscar for his work. 🙂 I liked the film but no second watch planned. Though now, that you have written about the unconsciously visible camera I might feel unconsciously interested to look for it and revise the film again.:)

No doubt, and these options are definitely worth pointing out. For me though, I prefer a much larger range of focal lengths for travel. I'm sure you know this stuff far better than I, but for @SRV1981 and others, here are some thoughts.. I'm not far enough into the film theory, but I know they shoot documentaries and ENG with zooms for a reason, and I suspect my reasons for wanting that flexibility is the same as theirs. I shot travel for a couple of years with a 35mm FOV being the main lens, and after a while I noticed a same-same kind of look to the footage. I noticed this same look when iPhone video first got popular but it only had one focal length, and the same for action-camera-only videos. My analysis of award winning documentaries and travelogues showed me two critical things about the cinematography: 1) the shots were nice, but not incredible 2) the way they were used in the edit was what made the final product really great I was also amazed at how many shots there were, and their variety. We all know that the average shot length of today's media is around the 2-4s (with 4s being on the slow side), which is 1400-700 shots for a 45 minute episode. This is easy to achieve if you don't want the shots to be that different from each other, but if you want variety and you want them to be interesting, you either need to go to a large number of locations or you need a zoom. The average vantage point will potentially have a large number of interesting compositions.. the wide shot of course, the low-angle wide and the high-angle wide might also be interesting, but beyond that it's about zooming in to interesting details. Due to compression at longer focal lengths you can also juxtapose different foreground and background elements by getting closer and wider or further away and zooming in. For travel, your ability to "zoom with your feet" is often severely limited, and you have to shoot from where you are allowed to be: At the zoo or the safari park, you can't go into the lions cage and walk up to the lion to get a close-up On the top level of the hop-on-hop-off bus you're not allowed to stand up when the bus is moving.. so the choice is either shooting the wide shot only (which might include the people next to you), or zooming and getting all kinds of compositions My shot of the pope giving a Sunday address at the Vatican would have been a shot of a tiny speck in a window of a rather grand building if I'd only had the wide, but thanks to the 10x zoom I had on that trip I am zoomed in enough that you could see his facial expressions Any landscape photographer will tell you that having a telephoto is wonderful because all mountains in the distance look small with the wide but the tele is how you make them look big Any time there's an animal - birds, squirrels, monkeys, etc... often you want the close up but don't want to get close to them, or they don't want to get close to you etc etc The online world seems reluctant to look at or learn from the professionals, who often have hundreds or thousands of times the experience and insight that the online crowd has. Or, if they do, they only pay attention to what Deakins might say about shooting a feature film. But travel isn't a movie set - it's real life and the doco shooters use different equipment for a reason. Ignore their experience to your own detriment.

Did you know (do you even care…) that the venerable S1R can shoot 10 bit, 5k 30p internally? I didn’t until the other day but discovered it does so just for some amusement, tried it. Holy cow, - it’s better than the 4k 60p I have been getting out of all the S cameras shooting the Natural profile. It’s a 3:2 format, but so what. There’s no log available but the Flat profile is quite gradeable. I kind of knew it existed actually but had simply dismissed it as the 6k doesn’t look as good as the 4k so just ‘assumed’ 5k wouldn’t either. Wrong! I shot a few scenes back to back against my usual setting and it’s much nicer so giving it a run out at this weekends wedding… Had to flip everything to NTSC on all 4 cameras and will be working on a 24p timeline instead of my usual 25, but I can squeeze a little more out of my slo mo as it will be 60p @ 40% instead of 50p @ 50%. All the 30p will be @ 80% and only the static talky bits will be in real time, ie, 24p timeline shot at 24fps. So: 24 @ 100%, 30 @ 80% and 60 @ 40%. Could be a ‘game upping’ weekend… 🤔