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I'm heading back to working mainly on a tripod or monopod for as much of my work as I can. I'm just not a fan of the handheld look that seems to becoming increasingly popular...and increasingly annoying to my eye as in rather than simply being part of the unfolding narrative, all I see is a camera operator. Anything and everything I can do in 2025 on sticks, is happening and the key to that for me is instead of having my principal run& gun video unit on my right hip to hand, it will always be on either my freestanding monopod indoors, or new super-quick and super-lightweight tripod outdoors which will force me out of the laziness of shooting handheld. If I ever need to or want to shoot handheld, it will be with either the monopod or tripod still attached. And when I say laziness of shooting handheld, I am not saying it is 'lazy' per se, because if you like that look and are deliberately going after it, great, but rather it grates on me personally. There will still be a place for handheld and for gimbal type work, but at very specific times for very specific purposes. Nothing to do with M43 or APSC, but the mentions of tripod resonated with me! Most of what I learn and then act upon, tends to come from not so much what I like, but rather what I don't like and as someone in the industry, I find it impossible to switch off when watching anything, whether it be a series or a movie because all I see is the BTS! Well it's not all I see and I am inspired by some of the stuff that I see and like, but it's like bad audio, - bad (to me) camera movement really grates on me and as a result, I am determined not to inflict that on my own clients if at all possible!

IMO, shallow DOF should usually be shallow enough to separate talent from background and draw the eye to the talent, but without obliterating the background into a mess of shapeless blobs of color. Exceptions may be made for extremely dramatic moments, especially if the talent is intended to seem alone - or on the other side, if setting the talent in a specific place in a wide. A lot of the main YouTubers would have people believe that "cinematic" footage involves continuously moving the camera without any reason for it. I've also received some looks from younger filmmakers in my area when they're onset as a PA or similar for shoots that I'm doing - when I'm putting the 20-pound Komodo-X kit on sticks, they sort of roll their eyes at the old fuddy duddy. It's cool, though - as you've pointed out, Spielberg does a lot on sticks and I challenge any of them to explain why Fincher's work isn't "cinematic." Not that I'm Spielberg, Fincher, or any of their DP's... but a strong composition with the camera on sticks is ideal for some things. Switching to handheld for narrative purposes is one of the specific reasons that I bought the Ronin 4D. Now I have the options of locked down with the K-X, shaky handheld with the OG Komodo which is rigged to be under half the weight of the K-X, and fairly smooth gimbal handheld with the Ronin. I used it on a shoot yesterday and it's the best experience I've ever had with a gimbal on set. Anyway, having been mostly S35 for my shoots in the last year, I've been finding it a real pleasure and I've missed FF a lot less than I thought, especially once I got the Fujinon MK set. In general, I'd say S35 is great in a practical sense - shallow enough DOF at t/2.8-5.6 to be pleasing, but not so shallow that pulling focus gives an aneurysm by the end of a long day on set.

Perhaps the Nikon Z50ii might be the solution ? There is no need to switch the IBIS off when it doesn't have it in the first place😂 People seem to be clutching their pearls because it uses the sensor from the D500, which is a clear indication that they’ve never shot with the D500. And it moves the video side of the story on massively as well from the D500 of course. 10 bit 4:2:2 N-Log with the RED lut compatibility, single button access to custom built profiles, waveforms, wireless timecode, headphone jack etc etc. If you want to shoot 4K60 then the additional crop will be less significant to you if you're shooting on S16 lenses and its worth bearing in mind that the D500 had an additional 1.5x crop to shoot 4K25 etc so thats a win anyway ! If you want higher frame rates for the occasional shot then up to 1080p120 is available without penalty. All with the Z mount which will take every type of lens even hoarders like us can throw at it. With the TechArt you can have AF as well if you want it for all the vintage glass. The native Z mount DX lineup isn’t stellar in it’s breadth but with the Megadap adapter does that even matter when it turns it into more or less an E mount native camera to massively expand that choice of compact lenses? I might have talked myself into getting one.

Denizens of the internet... I present to you the Panasonic Q It is Netflix approved with 6K open gate. Phase-detect AF and IBIS Leica lenses (And some nifty Noktons) In-camera LUTs And still nobody cares because it has a Lumix badge - not a Sony. Yes, it is as small as a Leica Q. Yes, it is much better for video than a Leica Q. The Leica Q3 is 6300 euros. This set me back 1299 special offer in Olive Green. The lens can be changed... On the Leica Q you are stuck to a fake Leica lens that needs heavy digital correction to look ok. It has IBIS... the Q of course doesn't. And in the end, they are both the smallest full frame cameras you can get along with a Sony RX1R II or Sigma Fp/L So in conclusion, Panasonic are doomed. The social media response to this camera made it out to be some sort of silly toy. It just goes to show how uncreative these zealots are. Would it have been nice to have a built in EVF, the only feature aside from extra resolution you get for your 6300 euros on a Q3? Of course. Would it have been nice to be Leica grade in terms of materials, looks, and so on? Well it's not THAT far off really. There has never been such a good image and wide range of features in a camera this small or cheap, end of story. Add a Sigma 35mm F2 or Voigtlander M 40mm F1.2 and enjoy!

Speaking about old (non cinema) lens I saw a couple of post from Filippo Chiesa on FB about these Hong Kong lens NONIKKOR 🙂 https://artralab.com/#page-4

All the video recording modes on the Z50II are 4:2:0.

I used to really enjoy filming with the Voightlander 17.5mm 0.95 on the GH5. I filmed several weddings without changing the lens and really liked the results.

Been following this excellent website and forum since I got Canon 550D in 2010. Ended two months ago to Z6iii after using GH3, GH4, GH5, S5, S5ii and have shot also a bit with GH6 and GH7. If viewed from 3 meter wide screen with true 4K HDR projector, there is a slight difference in resolution and colors in 6K NRAW vs 5.4K H.265 in my opinion. The 6K NRAW seems to be a bit sharper, but not over sharp, and colors feel a tad richer. For example, during the sunsets NRAW seems to have nicer hues to my eye, but it could be my Resolve skills are still just lacking for correcting H.265 NLog white balance. Correcting NRAW WB is just easier. Z6iii 6K50p NRAW in normal quality is 11.7GB per minute vs 3GB for 5.4K50p H.265. The Z6iii NRAW is noisy and it flickers if you under expose. Still, by over exposing a stop or two according to the wave form and zebras ISO 12800 seems usable. The slight amount of noise looks more organic to my eye on the big screen than noise in H.265 Still, if S5ii did not have that slight over sharpening compared to original S5 IQ, and it had 6K50p mode, it’s H.265 at 1.5GB or even 3GB per minute would be perfect.

Kept a single S5ii.

Are you asking IronFilm for more links beyond those that Davide DB was already kind enough to provide you?

ALL items gone and thanks for the purchases folks! Ain't no extradition from where I am now headed...

For the most part, measurements/comparisons won't matter too much. The Alexa 65 is going to get used on a bunch of Hollywood productions and the 12K/17K will get used will get used on sets where budget matters and where the entire cost of buying the 12K is about the same as renting the Alexa for 2-3 days. 🙂

These are all pretty fair assessments - and of course we all have different pros/cons based on our shooting needs. As someone who has been using the R5C for several years now, and now has two of them, I can say that the switching from video to pics is not that big of a deal after a FW update that reduced the switch over time to under 5 seconds. So if that practical difference of maaaybe 2 seconds (compared to an R5 or other hybrid cams) is of absolute critical importance - compared to all the things you gain with the R5C's feature set - and if JPEG isn't enough, then yes, it isn't the cam for you. Also, if I'm not mistaken, you can be in 8K RAW video mode AND still shoot RAW pics. You don't have to extract stills from the video. As far as image stab goes, I initially bought an R5 bcuz I thought I needed IBIS, and honestly, after about 6 months using both cams together, I didn't feel like the gains of the R5's IBIS were enough for me to keep it - so I sold it and got my second R5C. For my use cases the R5C's DIS in tandem with lens IS is perfect for my needs. And again, losing IBIS was offset by all the cot damn features you get with the R5C. The only thing I miss with the R5 is the little extra compactness it gives you by not having a fan AND the fact that you cannot adjust the internal mics on the R5C, at all. These factors are why I'm currently considering picking up and R7/5/6 MKII for a passion project I'm shooting overseas next year. Bcuz the R5C's fan + the need to have a small shotgun mic for usable audio, means I'll stick out like a sore thumb way more if I bring it with me, altho that Sennheiser MKE 200 might low pro/compact enough for me to just stick with one of my R5C. All that to say, the R5C feels to me like a final destination, future proof cam. And while I still need to decide what my C-Cam will be, I won't be surprised if I just make it another R5C and call it day.

Also, forgot to say, I watched 2 of the 3 videos above (not watched the Zf one yet) and the Nikon picture looked sooooo much better than the Sony. Possible lens and editing differences and then there is Youtube compression etc, but if the variables were as close as possible, that Nikon picture looked much nicer to my eyes.