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Watching that last video I came to the opposite conclusion - maybe because I watched most of it with the sound off so I didn't have to hear Gerald's commentary. My observations were: 1. The base rolling shutter is fine and the criticisms amount to hysteria. The 15ms shots looked better, sure, but only because you're comparing back to back. No viewer in the real world would care. 2. *Panasonic has provided multiple modes that allow you to mitigate RS*. Amazing that isn't the the takeaway. You can get decent read speed in a pinch, you just have to make some (minor) compromises. 3. Don't do panning shots with telephoto lenses. If Robert Altman super-zoom pans are your jam, then the S1RII sucks. I like how the first thing the camera guy Gerald wrangled along said was 'I mainly do dolly shots so rolling shutter doesn't matter to me' and then had to come up with some debilitating circumstance for bad RS. If you listen to Gerald's commentary then you get a negative take-away. If you just use your eyes you see a really capable and flexible camera.

Well, when I started coming back to EOSHD and read your laments, I knew we were on the same page. That clatchy shutter has been the reason I've almost eclusively used the S5 for video. For stills, I always grab the S1.

It will be 4 years trying to bully everyone into manufacturing stuff in the US not realizing that they will have to pay the factory workers US wages instead of Chinese or Thai, and the increase in costs for the manufacturer from what will make 50% tariffs look like peanuts. I hope the US consumer enjoys their inflation. Having already crashed the stock market and let Russia off the hook, soon with the sanctions lifted, there's a lot of other unintended consequences to come from voting for a convicted fraudster that people may not have realised at the time when they voted for a senile Russian asset. Of course there's a ton of Japanese cameras made or assembled in China and certainly shipped from China, Thailand or Vietnam rather than directly from Japan so the US will be seeing massive price hikes on all that as well, and that's the best case scenario for the US - as at some point importers may choose to prioritise other markets over them, and there's plenty of stuff in short supply like Fuji cameras which will be withheld and sent to the many other markets without tariffs. There's also the problem of raw material resources if MAGA want to make manufacturing great again and do large quantities of modern electronics on a farm in Alabama, they will have to import a ton of it from China or plunder Ukraine (maybe snatch a few gold watches and gold teeth from dead bodies whilst they're at it?). The whole bullying of Canada and Greenland thing is all so these nazi crooks can dig them up for raw resources and access Canada's hydroelectricity on the cheap. It isn't going to happen, not if Mark Carney wins. I hope people who voted for the nazi party feel the hit in the bank accounts. YOU DESERVE IT 10x.

Fujifilm X-M5 would be the winning for top notch image quality and maximum discreteness / compactness. Don't forget the light you remove is just as important as the light you add! (especially these days with our very sensitive cameras) Is why I included a few floppies and C Stands from B&H in my previous post in this thread. Also, bouncing a light can often be just as good / better than adding an extra light. I get it, but you can fine tune almost any image in post, as long as you have enough light in a shot. 99% of people watching on YT can't tell the difference between a well-shot GH2 and an ARRI Alexa. An iPhone will be a sufficient camera for YouTube. Every point about audio, also applies just as well to cameras 😉 We will have to wait for a FX30mk2 (or maaaybe a FX3mk2 might have a big enough knock on effect) before the FX30 prices will come down 😞 Because the professional range of Sonys are just in too much high demand. Or the Tamron 17-70mm f2.8 I reckon is even nicer, slightly wider, and even more reach while staying f2.8 https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1609642-REG/tamron_afb070s_700_17_70mm_f_2_8_di_iii_a.html Takes a lot to learn how to use them well though

I've cycled through a lot of cameras to get here (including Blackmagic, Sony, and two REDs) and ended up selling off about a dozen cameras last year. I think I'm finally happy. I can't think of anything else that I really want and I haven't purchased a camera in almost two years, which is a record for me: WORK/DOCUMENTARY/NARRATIVE CAMERAS Canon C70 x2 FUN/EXPERIMENTAL CAMERAS Canon 5Diii with ML Canon EOS-M with ML Lumix GH1 (hacked) Lumix FZ47 STILLS CAMERAS Canon EOS-R Olympus E500 Fujifilm E900 Canon Elan (Film) If I could snap my fingers and add a camera to this list, it would be the Ikonoskop A-Cam. Or, I'd probably buy an Octopus16 if they ever get around to releasing it.

Anyone here specialize or enjoy documentaries? My wife and I made a doc for our small community and were wondering if it had any viability beyond in-town screenings at the local film fest. https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/gorqbss1yxq6lufl81x44/HAWK_WATCH_SCREEN_DRAFT.mp4?rlkey=x5d8vcd4igr3bix0cdsgajq0b&st=mt1xzunz&dl=0 The 1st draft here is still loosey-goosey, but if you're so inclined, take a look and see if the story intrigues you enough to say, "Yeah, you might be able to get this out there other places." We feel it's such niche topic that distribution isn't much of a reality, but maybe being niche is a positive in a certain way --and with a significant cut down it could have opportunities? Not sure. As one work on these things one gets rather myopic. As you might imagine, feedback from folks in our local community is too biased. They're just happy to see themselves, colleagues, and friends in a film. Any advice is welcome if you have time to watch.

It's more depressing than embarrassing being American. Helplessly watching government institutions crumble one by one. Republicans have become the doublespeak party, talking about rule of law while favoring criminals, talking about freedom while banning parades, talking about balanced budgets while having the largest deficits, complaining about "mainstream media" from the largest broadcast company, and so on. And as much as Trump was the worst possible outcome, Biden being the actual candidate for so long shows that we have no one competent to turn to.

I remember when Apple made the Mac Pro in Texas because it had such a high price tag and massive margin they could afford the American wages for the factory. Same doesn't work with smartphones, consumer electronics, cameras, and so on. Not anything under $4k anyway. Imagine the number of people you need to build 2 million smartphones a month? Wage bill if they are all on $50k+? I think the only intelligent American is an embarrassed American at the moment. I feel for them. The amount of people who have been hoodwinked by propoganda, Fox news and social media is incredible. And the rest of the world is just angry. The UK, Canada, Mexico, Germany, and so many others are allies of the US. We are being treated very very badly. But that's not really surprising if you read the Christopher Steele report into Trump's Russian holidays, with FSB filmed prostitute Kompromat, golden showers and all the dodgy dealing.

These Trump voters, they are all for manufacturing in the US but I doubt any of them actually wants to work in a Foxconn factory... let alone have one next door and the same air quality the industrial areas of China 'enjoys'. None of them want to pay double for their next iPhone either. Never has the disconnect between reality and opinion been so wide as it is right now. Tough times coming.

I recently switched to an FX3 (from shooting redcode on a RED Komodo) and found the workflow for ProRes RAW to be horrendous. I've helped build an Adobe Premiere plugin which is an entire RAW processing pipeline with proper RAW controls. OCTOPUS RAW Studio You can finally set white balance and ISO and a lot more! It also supports CinemaDNG.

My guess is that Canada and Greenland both have environmental rules that would make extraction of minerals/resources difficult, time-consuming, and expensive. On the other hand, if shithead succeeds in erasing what poor environmental laws we already have in this country, he'd give the corporations carte blanche to do as much repercussion-free damage as they want (as long as he gets a taste of the profit).

It's a work in progress, yes, so the feedback is appreciated. Your suggestions align with our thoughts as well, so the affirmation is encouraging. There were a few different storytelling tacts we considered. We ultimately decided to not deviate from their reality much and stay true. Our usual tendencies would have been to play up some of the challenges to heighten stakes, but their thing is actually rather modest and somewhat mellow, so (this edit for our locals anyway) is character study and a slow unfolding of their situation. We expect to ultimately make a short "TV" version where the tighter and conventional storytelling stuff is in play. So many different cameras were used simply because that's what we had on hand. Also, there was a perverse pleasure in knowing we were using a ridiculous mix of cameras and then trying to unify IQ in post. So much of what my wife shot was on an old Fuji XPro2. Which is kind of a really dumb thing to do if you know that camera. But oh well! I often used a Olympus EM10iii --with a 1970's 50mm on it. That's the camera that caught alot of the people shots. For the hawks, my severely banged up GH5 had a super cheap vintage Toyo 500mm lens and a 2x extender on it. That was the rig that caught the most bird footage. Rented some things along the way, but the timing of the rentals and nature didn't yield much. Having that old lens was the silliest thing ever for capturing clean nature shots, but there was a lot of fun in the challenge of trying to make it work. Manually trying to focus while panning at an effective 2000mm fov? That was difficult. I should have bought a real tripod, like a Sachtler, for trying to get birds in flight. Not doing that was a mistake. The Oly cam was the most doc friendly. Small, unobtrusive. Easy to use handheld kuz of the decent IS. Looked good most of the time. Trying to film on my Xiomi 12s Ultra was...meh. Got a few pretty shots on it, but missed so much while fiddling with the touch screen. No thanks. Not doing that anymore. Also, the phone's IS induces unwanted image jitter. Bleh. The phone camera can look really great. On par with the other cams in a way. Not a practical tool though. As for audio we just put 3 lav recorders on the main characters and let it rip. Typically 2 hours in the morning, 2 hours at night. x3 x60 days x2 years. No monitoring of the audio. We got what we got. Keeping impressionistic field notes helped when trying to find good phrases later. The standard grind of doc editing there, mitigated with the novel AI assist of transcribing. Every once in awhile we'd pull out a blimp/deadcat/shotgun thing and get some quick interviews, but only a handful. Finally, the days in the field were not really working shoots, per se. More like us hanging out with friends, so those numerous hours were not a problem whatsoever. Still, our rate card plus those hours would have kept the wife and I flush, but this is doc film making so that ain't happening. If we ever see a return on this I'd be amazed. Cheers!

Ditto. I’ve judged national (UK) level print comps, but never entered one myself for over 20 years and co-run 5/6 small group multi-day workshops, but the problem I have is… I’m either too busy working May-Oct, or too lazy the rest of the time to be bothered. I like the idea of comps and if asked to be part of something, I’d at least consider it, but as a solo effort, could not be bothered!

Yep. We've been their neighbour for a few centuries and know their tendencies (expansionism, etc.) We were fine for over a hundred years before we had a free trade agreement so we could do that again I suppose. I think it's okay for a country to protect its own industries, I just don't like the territory expansionism part. Like why can't they just buy minerals from Greenland? Why do they need to own it? I think Canada will be in this world longer than Trump will.

When I read that bit it seemed interesting but then thought about for myself what it would mean. I don't have time for my own projects as it is so introducing more seems like I wouldn't have the time for (even though the idea is exciting.) But one thing I can do is write a bit about the challenges I'm having right now in my own projects. That would be kind of interesting to others I think.

I don't own a single bottle - but I do have over 20 cameras!

Well, preorder placed. If it arrives before I head out of town, the first thing I will do is record a shutter sound comparison with my S1. (Here's looking at you, @MrSMW.)

Probably run out of topics. Make a list of 10, 20, 50 key topics to cover and when you have been through them all, without repeating yourself, where is there to go? Gear reviews, opinion pieces and more gear reviews!

Yup, which is why I said ‘lighting’ not ‘lights’ as in ‘how scenes are lit’ whether that be indoors or out. Flat light, hard light, side light, back light…to me, lighting is the biggest and best palette we have to play with. Cameras etc, they are all pretty much the same in comparison!

Someone on this forum is actually producing work and putting it out into the world?! I had to watch and I am glad that I did. I thought that the visuals and editing were really nice. I loved the energy you created in the opening; it was riveting right off the bat. Hal is a memorable and interesting character. I tend to think of raptors as generally solitary so seeing such a magnificent series of "rivers" was a real treat -- I had no idea. I am by no means a wildlife documentarian, but I'd like to offer a little critique. You've got a great setup but then I was waiting for an obstacle. Something that raises the stakes. Is the solar farm or other development being pushed through? What happens when Hal steps down? Or (and I really hope that this doesn't happen), what effect will the new strain of avian flu have on these birds? I think it might be worth keeping in touch with these folks because any one of those scenarios would add the drama that a piece like this needs to get into the bigger festivals or broadcast. Or if it just doesn't look like the story will evolve much more (or you're just ready to move onto the next thing), I'd recommend cutting it down to a very tight 20-25 minutes. Maybe the climax is when the influx of birders come out in response to the email. There was good tension in that scene, like the citizen scientists were about to lose control of the mob. Now a couple of questions. I saw in another post that you shot this with something like a dozen different cameras. What was the reason for that? Did any of them prove to be particularly documentary-friendly? It seemed like you had a LOT of people wearing lav mics and you caught some really choice soundbytes that added a lot to your story. What was your approach to audio? And how many times would you say that you've been out there for a shoot? One last thing. The screener was only in 480P but that didn't stop the story from coming through at all. 4K be damned. Great job on this and thanks for sharing. It was the most compelling share I've seen here in quite a while!

I'm not sure of the warranty, but I've bought two things from them on Black Friday (last year and the year before, they had coupons for a big discount on their already pretty-low used prices - I think like 20% or 25%). One was a C70 and the other was a Ronin-4D 6K (which I pretty quickly upgraded to the 8K). Both were great deals and showed up in exactly the condition I expected from the website description.

Apparently they're working on it, with Z6iii senaor tho https://nikonrumors.com/2025/03/13/new-nikon-z-video-oriented-camera-rumored-to-be-announced-later-this-year-similar-to-the-sony-fx3.aspx/

If you wait a month or two, the S5 will probably be on sale new at B&H for $999. It's hit that price a few times in the past 6 months.

Meanwhile, in the actual real world, if someone can’t use a piece of kit like this to film a doc, a movie or even just a wedding, it’s the human element that cannot perform. Maybe the next iteration will be up to their needs so best wait until then I think.

If the bros made The Godfather.

Possibly very slightly over budget then… How much are used Sony FX30’s? Pair one of those with Sigma’s excellent and tiny 18-50mm (27-75 in FF equivalent) f2.8 and that would be a superb pairing.

OK. Then lighting lighting lighting. With some stage management, so mostly likely, multiple lights. IMO the single biggest thing that will differentiate yourself from the rest.

Yeah I have them in USB hubs for my Macs. Double up as tea warmers.

Yay its arrived.. Battery was as flat as a tack. Got it on charge now. Visually it perfect, there's not a mark on it. Got a somewhat free day tomorrow. i plan on taking photos of all the murals that have been painted on various walls in and around town. and some video as well probably.

I think pretty much any sector on social media (unless it's very, very niche) is going to be saturated with content. All you can really do is make your content as interesting and easy to watch as possible. If you are going to be on-camera and/or talking to the audience it'll probably take lots of practice and time to develop your 'presentation style' unless you have a natural talent for it. Those things are far more important than small differences in picture quality between cameras etc. that your viewers won't notice. Don't over-think the hardware side of things and buy extra stuff that you think you *might* need (and then waste time working out how to use it) - the KISS principle.

I'm hoping that isn't a huge issue as pulling the clay is not crazy fast, and I try not to make those mistakes that often :). Yeah I am not sure I need 10 bit log tbh. Don't think intra frame compression matters either if the wheel is just rotating in place. How is the color SOOC with minimal editing for the Panasonic vs Nikon? Somehow the Fuji XT-3 is around $850 in the US due to all the Fuji hype from YT :(. It was my first thought too Hmm Anamorphic seems interesting to play around but in the far, far, future I think main problem with S1 is size (would like to be able to take the camera to galleries or on the street) and +$250 in price. Is manual focus such a huge issue with focus peaking and a static subject? I plan to tape where the tripod sits and mostly never move it. Eventually I would like to film some interviews/short studio tours with artists when I go to Asia to visit family this summer but I am not so sure I need AF for that. Also thank you everyone for the suggestions. I think I am going to pick up the S5 from B&H this weekend unless there is a huge difference to the Z6 in terms of color science.

Yep I already am doing that with my iPhone 13 Pro and planning to use that as my A/B cam to start (most likely to get hte wide angle shot). Altho I need to get a new tripod and phone mount because the one I bought in Japan for $15 disintegrating. I just loathe the lack of manual adjustability on the phone. Pottery (vlogging) on social media these days is also kind of saturated. I am not looking to become a vlogger but I am hoping filming with more careful framing, lighting, and depth of field.

Good idea. I hadn't even thought of that option but I will definitely get one! Thanks for the advice. I think a time lapse feature would be useful for hand building but for throwing its a bit too slow to match the movement. I will definitely try to post a video here once I get up and running. That guys seems to be right up my alley with the janky alternatives lol. Hmm definitely leaning towards the S5 then if record limit is not going to be an issue. How are the colors SOOC? Like I said to start I tend to overthink things so hoping to get a few videos out there with minimal editing/setup and learn the more advanced stuff as I go.

To go a different way, and I don't think I saw it suggested yet, why not just get a tripod mount and a decent modern iPhone? On 15/16, you can easily record nice quality ProRes/log to an external SSD (or even to CF with a USB-C to CF adapter). Combine it with a decent mic and you're set.

You'll be amazed at the quality of 10bit H.265 LOG at low bitrates, even as low as 50Mbit/s Unless you're doing very heavy VFX / grading / lifting shadows 5 stops for HDR puke look - it looks excellent. The Z6 and a7 III have a similar image, similar spec, same sensor, it comes down to price, lenses, mount, and if the a7 III is as high as $1k I would choose the $750 Z6 instead. The s5 has 10bit LOG, as long as you're happy with a much worse EVF and autofocus than Z6. One of the cheapest and most capable 10bit cameras under $700 is the Fuji X-T3. The Z6 has no N-LOG but you can install my own EOSHD Z-LOG profile and use LUTs. If you absolutely need 10bit LOG rather than 8bit Panasonic is pretty much only full frame choice for very cheap under $800.

As it’s the current obsession in camera world, I’m trying to work out what would happen if you used a camera with terrible rolling shutter when filming pottery throwing when it starts to go awry on the wheel and gets the wobbles. Will it make it look like a lava lamp or will it go the other way and cross the streams in the Steven Wright “I put instant coffee in a microwave and almost went back in time” way ?

I think Jimmy is officially / unofficially a Canon guy, at least that’s what he is always seen using in the behind the scenes sections of those docs. Just made me think a Z8 or Z9 could be in his future. Bertie Gregory is one doc maker who I have seen use a Z8 out in the wild, he’s also a RED user so that makes sense. I’m sure there are many others as well Bertie is just the most recent example. It seems like Nikon really is going to transform their whole company with the RED acquisition, they will always be a photo / optics company first but all of the hints are there that they are going to hitch their wagon to the cinema / video star and either thrive and come out on top or fail and be bought out and sold for scraps to Sony / Canon and private equity. Nikon, it appears, is showing us they didn’t buy RED to settle a patent issue. Nikon bought RED to refocus the whole company.

Still about $1500!