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I want the green one and I wants it now! But reality... I sent mine back for a full refund and then bought a used S5ii which also put €200 back into my pocket and aesthetics aside, it's a better camera. I wish they had launched the S9 at €999 and then I could have swung one as an 'additional camera' and maybe one day I will (I have an unopened box Smallrig cage for one thing) but that simple reality is, as my primary video unit, it's too high risk. But autofocusing M Mount lenses!

If it were to only take videos, I could make do with the camcorder and a phone. However, I find the phone too limiting and ergonomically a black hole of no return. Like you say, "thread the needle" is the name of the game on holiday and travel. Don't want to get too noticed by family or others. There are a couple of lenses that can make the MFT system unique for this purpose: Olympus 75-300mm, at only 423g, it covers a lot; Panasonic 12-32 kit lens, at 70g, why wouldn't to take it?; A favorite fast prime; there are many- just pick and choose your favorite(s). There are lots of options and I often find myself in the weeds.

I'm back from holiday. In retrospect, although the camcorder was fun, I suffered from "camera paralysis", a horrible disease where you don't know what to take with you. In the middle of my stay, I realized the GX800's display couldn't cut the mustard in any sort of bright conditions on the beach or in the Palouse area of Washington State. I did the right thing by obtaining a E-m5 iii, an old fav from a few years ago that I had sold. I'm now reconverted to MFT. I'm not sure what to do with my S5ii. I'll probably sell and pay down my car. Might sell the GX800 too (though it's a fun camera). Or, not sell anything. Next time, I will be bringing MFT lenses that cover ultra-wide to 600mm equivalent and I'll have no need for the camcorder.

And that is exactly it. I would prefer to get the cleanest/nicest image as in, 'like a raw file' and edit it to taste after the fact. Also, shooting for that in the first place as already knowing what the intended grade etc might be, but if there is some great fooking flare across the thing...and you don't want that, then you're fooked! Bladerunner in 1982 was fantastic and one of my all time favourite movies, but then Michael Bay came along...

I have never used an anamorphic lens (and probably never will) but I nearly always shoot for both portrait and landscape resolutions so you definitely do not need an anamorphic lens for that. I simply keep the subject matter near the center and crop space for the edges and I can easily convert to a social media friendly portrait resolution in post while still having the landscape resolution for everything else, this is particularly useful for drone footage where the camera only has a landscape orientation. For lens flares, they are trivial to add in post, I have a whole library of lens flares that were created in a studio with anamorphic lenses that I can add in post. I will admit that I use flares quite a bit for fashion/modeling videos but they are pretty common in the fashion world to add interest to an otherwise 'flat' scene. I do think they are overused at times but it's one of those things where if the client sends you a reference video that they like with them in it then I add them as well to mimic the look. For weddings or most other types of events I can't imagine a situation where I would use them. I definitely would not want them to be burned into the footage, its much nicer adding in post because you can control the intensity, direction, and location of them.

Yeah, the basic rule is that just because a card is recognized by the camera doesn't mean it can actually keep up with the data rate (no matter the card's stated read/write speed). On the Blackmagic cinematography forum there's this old thread where Frank Engel did 15-minute tests of a bunch of cards to see what would work: https://forum.blackmagicdesign.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=91479

Lot's of other options for grips though, I think the Sigma FP crowd has shown me the awesome creativity possible when enthusiasts get behind something. I am going to add a small grip but keep it minimal. My GX85 ended up selling for $700 on eBay which was a big surprise to me. I knew prices were going up on small cameras but that was a shocker. I just missed out on a Japanese auction for a silver S9 with the pancake lens that went for $1,100 a couple days ago. If I can score one below $1k US I know it will work for me. Shouldn't take too long, Besides Sony, most cameras aren't really holding value very well these days. I could be wrong but I really think they might get rid of the record limits on the next firmware update. If not, I can live with it being gimped for just short clips as a BTS/Steet camera useful as a third angle in interviews. Mostly Leica M lenses or fun Anamorphic 6k open gate experiments. A little brother to the Sigma FP that doesn't shoot 12 bit raw all the time.

I'm not sure I understand your question, anamorphic lenses and speed boosters do very different things. Anamorphic keeps the height roughly the same as a spherical lens but gives you a wider field of view with various degrees of interesting distortion and focus falloff. The look of 50mm lens so to speak but with a wider field of view more like a 35mm. (generalizing of course) A speedbboster/focal reducer would simply give you back most of the focal length lost by the 1.5x crop from full frame to S35 etc... Your 50mm looks to have the field of view more like a 52mm with similar bokeh and possibly an extra stop of light. But the whole field of view is changed, not just on the horizontal. Plus you now have to crop the top and bottom and loose pixels to achieve a wider aspect ratio. What I like about using FF Anamorphic lenses on a crop sensor camera is that you can loose some of the more extreme distortion and out of focus bits because you are not out at the edges of the lens.

I agree. For me it's more often the Pana 14-140mm plus fast prime, but I have taken kit zoom+75-300mm+fast prime occasionally if I'm planning a bit of wildlife photography while on vacation. The combo of small/light lenses and great stabilisation in small bodies like the EM-5, EM-10, GX85 and GX9 is what makes M43 so good for travel. (I was at a major camera dealer's 'event' yesterday with reps from most of the major brands in attendance, and discussed the lack of a modern GX8/GX85/GX9 using the 25MP sensor etc. with the Panasonic rep. He wasn't disagreeing with me... I also had a quick play with an S9 - ergonomically I'm not impressed, it really needs a grip of some sort and the SmallRig baseplate+grip that was attached to it adds weight and height so you loose part of the point of the smaller body. I think it's a bit too much 'style over usability' for me to be interested in it anymore.)

I stripped one of my c300 og to only body, no side grip, no top handle, no xlr lcd unit. paired it with some super zoom like efs 16-300. I did some street shooting, very effective. I can shoot wide and far without changing lens. internal nd is nice. if I take it for travel, I will bring a 50mm f1.8 for low light. the only issue is that I cannot pan and tilt freely. c300 og has 720p 60p but not as detailed as 1080p 30p. if for static shots this rig is fine, the size and the weight are acceptable for travel. not the smallest but very useable.

Interesting observations. I've mentioned my priorities elsewhere previously, but the first one is to get the shot. What this means in reality is having a camera with you that you actually take on the trip. Then that you take with you when you leave your accommodation. That you take out of your bag / pocket and turn on. That has the right lens to get the shot you want. That can focus and expose and compose fast enough to capture the moment. There's lots of pitfalls along that road for cameras to fall into and result in not getting that shot. Packing a smaller MFT with a long zoom and a faster lens option for low-light is a master-of-none package that threads the needle pretty well to get the shots you want. Do they look like a Cooke on an Alexa 35? - hell no. But if I had one of those on a trip and pulled it out in public the only thing I would be able to film would be people looking at the bozo who was shooting a movie, that is until security stops me asking for permits.