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Ditto. If anything, it has more appeal than ever, especially to the younger generations. I live the ‘Tiny Home’ ethos but can’t quite subscribe to the ‘I live in my car’ brigade because yup, perhaps you do, and maybe it’s your ‘home’, but let’s not pretend it’s your real choice! If I was single, I’d live in my motorhome/RV full-time, zero question. I live/work out of it 3 months a year out of 6, Apr-Sep, ie, 50% of the time as it is. Typically 3 nights per week on site wherever I am working in a corner of the carpark and then 4 nights either in free aires (official overnight van parking areas in France) or cheap camping grounds in order to fill/empty my tanks and use their electric etc. It’s my transport, office and tiny home on wheels with near zero set up ie, full-time bedroom, bathroom, kitchen and living/office space. Less ‘trailer parks’ in Europe or the UK though and very much looked down upon unless it’s one of the more upmarket over 55 one’s where prices tend to start at 250k£GB. I would have zero issue living in one unless it had a bad rep. I just might not tell so many people because the old and in some cases, rightful prejudices are exist. Over-priced city centre apartment or semi-rural trailer park? I know which I’d choose!

This guy has talent... This is shot on the Sony a1 and an RX100, and it's very nice. But then a funny thing happened... I discovered his Super 16mm stuff and liked it even better, although you have to appreciate it on a big screen for the texture, and not a phone. Film, being film has an imperfect nature. So more emotive. Now in the current digital camera landscape, full frame is king. And for a good reason. But what if you could have both Kodak Vision3 Super 16mm and full frame in one camera... Now, I considered the OM-1 as a Super 16mm 4K camera, because I very much liked the E-M1 Mark II since forever. The OM-1's OM-LOG however has a bit of a thin tonality, and is it a bit tricky to get looking right. Lovely ergonomics and EVF though. Now the Sony a1, has the resolution to do a 4K Super 16mm crop (close to, it's actually Micro Four Thirds at 2x-ish which is good enough for most c-mount lenses longer than 25mm like the Kern Switar 26mm F1.1, work of art that it is). The a1 I had but ended up selling to somebody far richer, because I feared it would depreciate from 5 grand to something like £1. This hasn't happened yet, as the new one is 7 grand. Anyway, sod Sony and their pricing... Doesn't shoot internal RAW anyway. Now N-RAW, BRAW, Canon RAW, I have tried them all, and to my eye at least they all look like H.265. There is just something so smooth and perfect about the modern faux RAW that it kinda defies the point, RAW should be raw and not processed. Those codecs are heavily processed and the file sizes are ridiculous. There's only one RAW format that has come close to FILM to me and that has always been Cinema DNG. Starting way back with the original BMCC and Ikonoskop, uncompressed 2K Cinema DNG. Following on from that the miracle of Magic Lantern RAW video, with the 5D II going from some very dodgy 1080p H264 to the best ever looking 1080p Cinema DNG RAW which still stands up today for tonality, grain, texture, micro contrast, motion cadence and colour... you know, all that stuff which gets chucked away in N-RAW! Then the 5D Mark III upped the ante to 3.5K RAW eventually, at 24fps in 10bit. The drop to 10bit didn't hurt it much. A little noisier in the shadows, but worth it for the huge resolution bump from a 1:1 sensor readout, which did away with the moire or aliasing without the need for a Mosaic Engineering AA filter. Then the Sigma Fp came along, but the first model has two drawbacks. The first is that it doesn't have the resolution for Super 16mm crop in 4K. The second is that the 4K RAW appears to be binned. It's a bit funky looking. Now the Sigma Fp-L has a 9K sensor instead... a whopping 60 megapixel. But I have not used it much... the reason being, I haven't quite found a lens that really suits it... Then I thought, well it has the best crop modes of any camera, and stays in those modes when you cycle the power or switch between stills and cine... Perfect for C-mount, Super 16mm stuff? It has a nice oversampling in these modes, from 1.3x crop to 2x... Sampling upwards of 7K down to 4.8K, which makes for some very finely textured UHD Cinema DNG footage, superior indeed to that of the first model. (It also adds into the mix phase-detect AF but it doesn't work very well) Now the Fp-L I thought could work well with my C-mount stuff and indeed, it fucking does. But I also think of adding a Panasonic OIS lens to the mix, for handheld run and gun Cinema DNG. So the 28-200mm looks attractive and yes, slow aperture but it's absolutely tiny. This tiny-ness is very important for the Fp-L, as it feels naff with big heavy lenses. And the Fp-L is very good in low light, because the sensor is enormous - the high megapixel count doesn't really hurt it, same with the Sony a1. The 28-200mm also adds OIS... the all-important missing stabilisation on a non-IBIS camera. So I think I have found the best full frame proper RAW camera that is best able to emulate the look of proper Super 16mm film and work with c-mount lenses, and offers you a full-frame walk-round zoom camera as well... And that means best of both worlds in one small affordable tool. Pop a 28mm F1.4 on there and it will also do a very good Leica Q3 impression. We may moan about the lack of IBIS and LOG, but then a Bolex doesn't have these either. And just think about the absolute massive pain it is to shoot with a Bolex and the expense you save going with a trusty Fp-L! Food for thought. .... The 8bit Cinema DNG to SD card is actually really good BTW

I wonder does shutter close when shut down contribute to this issue, I know on Sony people have been recommending not to close shutter when shut down to keep their life longer. I myself mostly use the R7 for video so it's not like I take photos a lot, even if I do take photos it is mostly electronic shutter anyway.

The second picture I assume is the Three Wise Men. Clearly confused as to where to find the stable block.

It was something people should've seen coming a long time ago. So many folks moved to these larger cities, in part because of the amount of work there was, not realizing how oversaturated it'd quickly get. I know so many people who moved to Nashville, Atlanta, Portland, Austin, and other cities thinking they'd do great there. And at first they did pretty good. They were booked up solid doing music videos and social media content, among other things. But more and more "creatives" moved to these areas, and then businesses started taking social media content in-house, so jobs dried up. A lot of them ended up doing jobs they thought they'd left behind (weddings!), moved to another city (where the same thing happened), or moved back home. Video jobs will always exist, to some extent, it's just a matter of being in the right place and being willing to take jobs that you don't like/enjoy. Those folks who thought they'd moved on from having to film weddings might need to start doing jobs like that again. Maybe being the camera op for the local cable access channel filming school board meetings might be necessary. It's not glamorous or fun, but it's work. I never stopped doing jobs like that. $50 for two hours of work filming a school board meeting or a city council meeting isn't exciting, but it helps pay the bills. I live in a mobile home. It's bought and paid for. It's a nice one in a nice community. I pay a lot fee of $340 a month. Even if I had a mortgage it'd cost a lot less than an apartment even with the lot fee. It's not glamorous, but I own it and it's affordable living. From doing public access work alone my lot fee is paid for every month. Pre-covid I'd considered selling my mobile home and buying a house, since I was doing really good. I don't care about the stigma or prejudices people have towards mobile homes and their communities, but owning a house and property where I wasn't restricted by the mobile home park's rules appealed to me. At the end of the day though I decided against it because I was able to live comfortably. If I'd gone ahead with it though COVID would've killed me financially even worse than it did. I was able to weather it because of how cheaply I'm able to live. My work would need to take an huge hit before my lifestyle became unsustainable. Making this job work for you might require changing how you live and being willing to take jobs that are "below" you. It's a hard pill to swallow, since we all got into this because of our desire to create and be creative, but it's no different than everyone else who has a job that they dislike. I hope that makes sense haha

I considered it and am still considering it, or rather a pair of them, but for stills only as in 1x A7RV with zoom vs 2x A7CR with primes... Based on my preferences and use case, the A7RV smashes (better ergos, EVF, LCD, card slots) the A7CR except in one single regard and that is that the A7CR has the pano crops in camera that it's slightly bigger bro does not have and probably because Sony are notoriously terrible with firmware, will never have. The Q is, can I compromise in various other areas to have that in camera crop option... When it comes to the FP/L and that CDNG option, would my clients care or even notice? Nope, but I would and that is my consideration. Plus/but, at what point do I need to say, "STOP! Enough is enough, - use what you have and stop tinkering!" Goes back to making custom crop mode stick on screen protector for A7RV...

I thought the same thing but with the A7CR. Despite its compromises, it’s smaller and more compact like the FP L. It does raw out to the Ninja but the main conversation here seems to be the chunky and filmic CDNG files. That’s the mojo. A7CR is now $2,000 and would make a nice little high mp travel companion for my other video spec’d bodies. But I don’t think we would come anywhere close to that filmic image of the Sigma FP/L.

This sounds a bit like a short film that I recently helped shoot, but where I wasn't DP. The DP was solid, but the director seemed really inexperienced. I showed up a couple of times to shoot when the DP wasn't available and before we shot, I said "Ah, we should get the Tentacles connected to everything for timecode" and the director said to just shoot it. I asked about the slate and he said that we'd just clap for sync. "Alright, but the editor is really going to hate us, without a slate or timecode." Sure enough, I'm now being asked to pull a bunch of selects from hours of footage to send to the editor because they got overwhelmed and annoyed when presented with a mountain of non-timecode footage without a slate to identify which take, etc. It also didn't help that the footage for one scene had no camera audio due to my unforced technical error (we'd plugged someone else's Rode Wireless Go into the Ronin 4D during the previous scene and I'd toggled the left/right audio inputs to external vs the internal mic, I forgot to switch it back on the next day when we shot and didn't use the Wireless Go again). Anyway, at least now I hope that the director has learned that you will pay a lot more in editor time/goodwill later if you don't take the minimal time to hook up timecode and use a slate on set.

I know it's bad to generalize but I want to open 2025 by doing so. What is happening in the video, happened ten years early in computing and more specifically in the web. Huge numbers of people have had access to devices and skills that were previously restricted to a few people. Let's call it democratization, that is, a downward availability of resources. A fundamentally good thing that has triggered processes of competition and lower prices for customers. But if we look at the issue from the point of view of those who have (or had) an IT company with employees or maybe even freelancers but not off the books, the issue also had negative effects: any pimply nerd from his bedroom would make you a website at bargain prices that you with your company would never be able to offer. You will say, yes but the quality suffers. Yes we agree. but how many customers appreciate it or are able to tell the difference? for every wise customer there are ten who rush to buy at the lowest price and who gives a shit if the results are crappy. Now, in my reasoning, replace computers with video cameras and software engineers with filmmakers. Does that make sense?

Ages ago I made some LUTs for the standard rec.709 pic profile on my Panasonic GH4 and LX100 which did lovely 4K, alas this was before V-LOG came out. The LUTs were correcting the standard dynamic range files to make them appear more Canon-like in terms of colour science (Panasonic and even Sony have come a long way since). Digging out these comparison shots... If you view these full size and download the originals, take a look at the book cover in particular. Just shows how even a small change in contrast can dramatically improve tonality in the mids and skintones. This is why I think there should be more SDR LUTs for standard pic profiles. It's amazing what difference they can make and how much you can do with an SDR 8bit 4K file.

Reality for me...and I guess many folks is yes, FP-L trumps it for outright image quality, but S9 beats it pretty much everywhere else from having IBIS plus tilt screen, battery life and a few other areas. But then for me, S5II beats S9 everywhere except some features specific to S9 that may come in firmware. Conclusion = LUMIX is for me, still the mainstream hybrid brand for pure video needs and has the least number of compromises over everyone else. What is their compromise? Outright image quality possibly...but actually, struggling really to find one... Another conclusion and that is LUMIX should work more closely with Sigma to create the ultimate real world hybrid!

I have tried the larger Pana lenses on the Fp and even Canon EF stuff with the MC-21 adapter and didn't really feel the mojo, handling wise. I think it has to work best with very small lenses like a Micro Four Thirds camera or a Leica Q. I have a grip on it, it helps but I still much prefer it with small primes. However I think the new Sigma 18-50mm F2.8 L-mount could be very interesting on it, the attraction being you can put that in Super 35mm oversampling 4K Cinema DNG mode, and use it like a vastly upgraded OG Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera. If it also had OIS that would be icing on the cake. I am also interested in the Sigma 24 F2, 35 F2 and 50mm F2 small full frame primes for it, these are A) affordable around the 500 euro mark second hand and B) about as small as the Leica Q3's 43mm This means you get a Q3 (same 60 megapixel sensor), in same small form factor, that just happens to shoot internal Cinema DNG like it's 2014 and Magic Lantern hacked. It may not be a typical 'work camera' but that combo of Q3 + Digital Bolex is what lights my fire when it comes to the Fp-L. And the image is splendid. Much better than a GH6 or OM1. If we had been offered this combo in the GH1 days... I dare say we'd pick the 60 megapixel full frame camera with internal "proper" RAW video. It is frankly unbelievable that it is only a tad bigger than the venerable GF1. The technology to make this happen is astonishing and I don't know why it doesn't get more hype. Especially on these forums where we have a focus on the artistic filmmaking side and RAW video. Sigma are really flying under the radar with the Fp-L, it's even more underrated than the S9!

ah, a new UWA lens just came out: https://www.newsshooter.com/2024/12/26/pergear-12mm-f2-ii-wide-angle-lens-for-x-e-z-and-m4-3-mount-cameras/ At US$169 it might be the cheapest f2 UWA lens there is.

Start using the S9 yesterday, I really dig the LUT implantation on Panasonic, quite intuitive actually. The 3.8k opengate 50mbps to keep file size small is a huge plus over 200mbps 6.2k opengate for quick social edits on ur phone

If you like the colors from the older Canons, why not try a newer one? Canon's colors SOOC are pretty consistent - enough so that when I got my R5, the first Canon I'd owned in years, my first thought on seeing the files was "Oh yeah, back to Canon." Otherwise, the GFX 100 II has tons of mojo. I assume that some of the other Fujis have it too - maybe worth checking the X-H2?

3 cameras with some ‘extra unidentifiable mojo’ for me have been: OG Fuji X100 circa 2011 Fuji X Pro1 circa 2012 Nikon Zf 2024 There was just something very ‘filmic’ about those OG X100 files and when they were in focus, those of the Pro1 especially paired with the 60mm f2.4. The Zf I believe shares the same sensor with the Z6, Z6ii and Lumix S5, but not the S5ii. Most Nikonites it seems prefer it over the newer one in the Z6iii and with a lens such as the Voigt 40mm f1.2, is reckoned to be quite special indeed. I’m thinking about picking that one up in e Mount so I can then use it on both my Sony and Zf for low light and as a walkabout lens.

Don't want to start 2025 with a negative post, but I saw this depressing new year resolution today: Nothing wrong with being a train operator, but we're at a point that being a train operator is a better career option than shooting pro video with RED cameras.