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After being in a pretty heavy accident on Saturday that has written my car off, my new favourite art camera is the Ring Doorbell camera. My car was hit at a 90 degree angle from the side by some clown who sped out of their driveway and across an empty bus lane flipping my car round and causing the rear tyre to blow. The art that the Ring Doorbell camera produced was in two parts. The first being a beautiful record of my hitherto unknown stunt car driving prowess to correct the induced swerving to avoid the trees on the pavement side and then the oncoming traffic in the other lane and bring the wreck to a controlled stop. The second and best bit was when the homeowner of the Ring Doorbell came outside and showed the footage to myself and the other driver who had thus far ludicrously been somehow claiming it was my fault. Upon which the other driver, faced with the reality did their own rendition of the Larry David fake fainting. As the Ring Doorbell was still active, it caught that too 🙂

HAVE YOU GUISE SEEN THIS?!?! IT IS A WORK OF ART idk where the overwhelming amount of negative reviews are coming from -- bloggers, influencers, theater goers -- but what about disney themselves!?? THEY like it!! thats why they spent half a billion dollars making it and advertising it. the 'empty theaters' are clearly propaganda what i like to see in filmmaking is some low contrast shots that are poorly graded, with bad art direction, costume design, etc. i like a script that would be borderline unreadable on the page, one that has been brought to the big screen with some surprisingly terrible acting, insane casting, and a healthy dose of girlboss wokeness. and i HATE the old fashioned boomer 'rotoscoping' from 'beautiful footage' that looks 'naturalistic' -- so lame!!! who came up with that!?!?? i dont want any kind of visual unity in sfx, vfx, whatever -- i LOVE uncanny valley stuff. it speaks to my generations post modern malaise in a way that old ppl just cant understand ~ i mean this sucks (below). i especially hate how friendly and cool the animals seem despite being kinda anthropomorphic in the face and theyre not EVEN REAL!!! the ppl who made this were morons w no tech. if only theyd had more dr THIS, on the other hand, looks GREAT to me. it needs a few more stops of dr but it is highly naturalistic i thought these were all real ppl until...... someone told me that IT WAS CGI!! i also though these characters were deformed dwarves (and possible aliens) until i was told that they are 'magical creatures' !!! fooled again by those hollywood geniuses! most of all, i like that turquoise color of her dress. what a great design! classic what do you all think of this contemporary masterpiece? im sure it will recover its $500 million within minutes and go on to be a timeless masterpiece that we show to our children, and our childrens children nice hoodie

Am sure this is the first and last time I'll ever see rifles being used to construct a diff frame! As on the weekend I was working on a friend's little short film, he was the Director / DoP / Writer / Editor / Gaffer / DIT / 1st AC / "Everything" (even acting in some of it!), except for Sound (which I of course did. Although I helped out a little teeny bit sometimes in other areas too, such as lighting). Due to the nature of the shoot (almost no crew, basically no budget, and out in the middle of nowhere) we had very limited amounts of gear at our disposal. So while a couple of combo stands with a proper diff frame was constructed for the first scenes of this film we shot down at the beach (which even that took a fair bit of hiking through the bush to get to), later on when we went further up the hill/cliff, then the heavier stuff was ditched. As wasn't viable to keep on carrying everything with us (and even a little dangerous? A little further on up from here is where one of our actors ragdolled their way down when they slipped and fell. Luckily they're still ok! Pity that moment wasn't caught on camera). Thus you see the improvised situation here! Making the best out of what we had at hand in the moment.

Bonkers. Sounds like you've had a worse weekend than Liam Lawson. Hope you are alright and no lasting damage other than the car!

Large sensor more compact bodies are my jam!

https://www.l-rumors.com/hot-panasonic-will-announce-a-new-lumix-l-mount-cine-compact-camera-in-april/ Maybe now everyone will leave the poor S1Rii alone…

tl/dr: Made a small and simple doc film years and years ago with my first 'hybrid' camera. The process was inspiring and changed my outlook about working with motion pictures: A bit of online chatter here about cameras that are older and it got me thinking because I recently posted a doc my wife and I are currently working on. It was made with recent camera gear and fancy new computers and software. Something old. Something new. Well, as a retrospect, here's a look at the very first film we attempted. This was in 2011. My entire career at that time had been broadcasting and corporate. Didactic stuff. That was my reality and vocational training. If making a film was compared being an architect designing a building, my education was basically akin to being an electrician. Installing wires and cables I could do -- and that was kind of it, y'know? So when we set out to shoot this 'Camino' flick, our assumption was that we were going to do what was typical for us: Subject-matter-experts-interviews, b-roll, maybe even having a presenter doing stand ups and narration. That type of thing. Interestingly, this upcoming shoot was immediately preceded by a corporate assignment in southern Spain. The experience of filming some pretty incredible scenery footage only to know that it was going to be handed off to my client who would hammer it into a dry travelogue video was disheartening. Also, a year before we had also made a standard travelogue video ourselves in Japan. We were underwhelmed by the results we created there too. My wife saw my frustration with all this and started asking "why". Why were we doing things a certain way. What exactly would we be offering the world with another video that was a parade of talking heads telling the viewer what to think/feel? No acceptable answers were readily available. So, the day before this journey we decided to ditch all the audio gear, the Sachtler tripod, and the HD video camera with multiple lenses. Into the backback went a used 5DII and a nikkor 50mm prime. That was it. Felt a bit naked, tbh. But that was the first day we set off into the world as filmmakers rather than as a cameraman or a broadcast ENG person. We wanted to make something completely impressionistic and opposite of what was typical for us. We'd only use 1 small cam, 1 small lens, a walking staff as a makeshift monopod. This epiphany came about not only from the conversation with my wife, but also the realization that a really simple camera rig was not only going to give me an opportunity to run and gun cinematically; but to do it better than with the extensive gak I normally carried around. Cinematic shooting was something that I never really felt the freedom to explore --until that moment. And so we went to make a humble unassuming little film. The simplicity became it's value. Less was more we reasoned. Create a vibe rather than an info dump. Our modest film might not seem like much, and there's so many mistakes I made first time out of the gate I still cringe at, but it changed our view about our careers. From there we started to be interested in what it took to be better storytellers. Could we actually do that? Really? All of this to say that perspective really matters. And that the gear we talk about here can actually offer new perspectives. But it was the attitude first and foremost that needed a shift. Cheers.

Thank goodness you're okay!

I convince myself its actually a side handle grip with a small tiltable EVF on top of it and then it doesn't seem so bad 🙂

Just need to figure out how to bluetac an EVF on it now. I do like the EVF-11 bolt on but it's too chonky. S5 II in an FX style body would be great. The S5 II rolling shutter however would not be suitable for the FX market, pro filmmakers just wouldn't accept it on a small action camera. So they will need to find a sensor newer than 2017.

The "XPimage Locking adapter for ARRI LPL Mount lens to Leica M" adapter exists, US$365.75: https://www.ebay.com/itm/134641448107

Accidental perhaps, but very welcome! A very significant part of me deprogramming myself from the bubble of social-media film-making was looking at professional work. After my analyses I concluded that any shot-on-location TV doc piece that was above average would have the equivalent quality of the top 20% of social media content. The pieces winning Vimeo Staff Picks would only translate to good-but-not-great in TV land. So your instincts from client work put you in very good stead in comparison to the very shallow pool of talent in online travel film-making. I think when you have any professional level as your reference point then it's difficult to see how much extra there is going on!

Very cool but I bet he can’t recreate Ana de Armas in my living room. It’s his next challenge.

I need this... It would save Panasonic for me... Full frame, premium rangefinder better than a7C, better than S9, big EVF, Fuji styling and dials, photographic monster that happens to do perfect 6K open gate too with the usual Panasonic features. It would save them in the photography market and get them back on track in a big way. Full frame GX9 please!

Slightly chunkier, better built and with a bit more design flair than the S9. Yep, I’ll buy it. Probably… The S9 is my run & gun video unit for 2025. I don’t much care for it for stills however. The Fuji RF I was hoping might be ‘The One’ and it’s close, but no cigar. A7Rii & C have great sensors and size, but ‘fail’ in various other regards for me. Essentially take the best qualities of the above 3 and mash them up and spit it out as the LUMIX S-RF camera. I wish…

Sorry for the repost but after second thought, I realized that this wasn't shot with the Super Takumar 50mm 1.4, it was actually shot with the Nikon Nikkor 28mm f/2 N.C. non-ai lens. I was using the Tak a lot last spring/summer, so I just assumed that was it, but the close up bothered me so I went back to my notes. Anyway, I didn't want to misrepresent the lens...

Good advice. Thanks so much for offering your suggestion. The director, my wife, is aligned with your take here. She definitely wants to hone the focus and define the 'voice' of the film better.

Maybe even bring in some actors and make some micro short films and show how old cameras can still be used to make art.

@Andrew Reid you should go back and revisit some of your favorite cameras from the beginning of eoshd... GH1/GH2 15 years later... I'm sure that would be really popular on YT and direct some people to the forum.

You cannot not include the original X100. It's basically just a point and shoot rangefinder with a 35mm F2 lens and one usable focus point in the center. Leaf shutter, incredibly advanced flash system, great skin tones. I really enjoyed using it until the TikTok fad made it a risk for me to use it for street photography. These suckers have become absurdly expensive. Now I'm having a blast with a tiny Nikon ccd point and shoot from about 20 years ago. Cheap as beans, fits everywhere, has flash, a nice wide to tele lens and the gf likes it. Of course the battery is mediocre, is very slow in operation and has glacial autofocus. BUT once you print an image created with those ccd sensors you realize the hype is real. I have NEVER seen skins tones as natural as the ones produced by these old Nikons (3300, 3400, etc).

For me it's the original Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera. That camera, and all the wacky c-mount lenses I used with it, was just so much fun to use and everything I got out of it looked so much better than it should have, at least to my eyes. I FELT like an artist using it, as opposed to a videographer. That was such a special sensor, and to this day I still don't understand why every camera manufacturer hasn't switched to a menu system like it (and the other BMD cameras.)

My latest fun-factor obsession is the Epson R-D1. It's the closet thing to a film-like shooting experience you can get on digital. As far as I know, it is the only digital camera in which you must cock the shutter manually... for sure it is the only digital rangefinder in which you must do so. Seiko made the automotive inspired gauges at the top, which are very fun. To me, it's the full, unapologetic ode to film cameras that Fuji wishes it could do. It's feeling very old at the moment though at 6MP and the images themselves aren't particularly spectacular on their own SOOC.

At least it won't be 7 years though.

I’d rather wait for the Nikon/RED version 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/

I was going to wait for a trade-in, but I found one in stock somewhere so I ordered it and it showed up today - so my "trade in' will be more of a "sale" to the store where I sent it - or at least, a sale + trade-in toward one of the media modules since their price is actually pretty competitive in terms of TB/dollar. So far, my impressions are "wow, it's chonky," "WTF do you mean there are no Arri locating pins on the top handle screwholes," and "wow, this camera gets warm." I'm running V mount right now since I don't feel like buying a series of expensive B mount batteries. The V mount plate supports 14.8v and 26v batteries. A YouTuber confirmed that the Nanlite 14.8v-26v V mount converter works with the camera so I grabbed one of them too. Confirmed that when I plug in my normal V mounts with it that the camera lets me choose fps > 60. I expect that it'll be a thing I keep in the bag for those rare times when I might want slow motion. I didn't even try recording it (and there's almost no way my media will handle it), but I smiled for a second when I set the camera to 8kp224 (2.4:1). That's more than any of my other cameras can do... in 4k. Anyway. I need to rig it better. My first stab at it is clunky and really back-heavy since I'm using two v mounts - the one on the camera to power it and a second Tilta plate with some d-tap and usb-c ports because when I plugged them into the main battery (A Smallrig VB212), the camera started to complain that it thought the battery was low (probably because of the voltage drop from powering the focus motor, handwheel, and Pyro-S). I have dinner plans tonight and tomorrow so it's unlikely that I'll do any test shots outside of the house + yard before Thursday (and realistically, probably this weekend!), but I'm excited to get out and put the camera through its paces.

I have the OG S5 I could sell/move to C camera and make room for a LUMIX FX3 style camera. However if it’s priced around the S1Rii I may still go for that. After 4k 120p uncropped and a faster readout speed, we’re really running out of things to complain about. What will people even argue about on YouTube anymore? LX3? They should troll Sony with that model number.

I definitely probably have too many cameras...if that's such a thing? 😇 For work it's the following: Lumix GH5 Lumix GH5 II (hybrid photo & video work) Lumix GH5S Lumix S1 (hybrid photo & video work) Lumix S5IIX (hybrid photo & video work) Lumix GH4 (pretty much retired and up for sale) Personal/EDC/Fun Digital: Lumix GX9 (photo & video) Lumix GH1 (the very camera which won me best image quality in a EOSHD Forum challenge) Fujifilm X-Pro 1 (photo only) Film: Canon AE-1 Program Canon EF-M (manual focus EF mount SLR - I pair with adapted Leica R glass which I often also use for video) Konica Genbakantonku 28 HG Of course there's a couple of action cams in for good measure - GoPro Hero 4 and DJI Action 2. Finally the flying camera - DJI Mini 3 Pro

Even with the Ninja V+ and the new smallrig cage the little X-M5 is still quite light. Gearing up for an event next week and will test out battery life and any overheating issues. Rolling shutter isn’t as good as the X-H2s but still totally fine. Also, lack of IBIS is mitigated by building up the rig a bit. The increased dynamic range is pretty impressive on this little guy. Still can’t believe this is an $800 camera. 6.2k open gate Prores Raw. just need to do some better cable management and maybe look into 3D printing a tiny side panel to help hide cables and wireless receivers. Loving these little Andycine Lunchbox SSD caddies too. Gets rid of all the extra space with standard SSD’s and cheaper than the expensive Angelbird units.

Rules are meant to be broken and Von Trier & Vinterberg did so by the early 2000's. Their first films under Dogme95 were shot using MiniDV and they later quickly embraced RED/ARRI digital cinema. Breaking the Waves was shot on 35mm but digitally scanned to process it in post and give it an aesthetic. Basically early modern color grading. All movies shot on film today are scanned digitally and graded. 35mm usually scanned at 4K-6K and 65mm/75mm 8K and beyond. Projection is also digital. Its a fallacy to think film is super soft with lack of detail. People romanticise old 35mm movies but they were usually scanned at 480p/720p for TV, VHS, DVD. Most of the time from from second or even third gen prints not even original film negatives or masters. Maybe you are into soft grainy contrasty Lo-fi analogue aesthetic and that's fine but you can emulate that look pretty well today in Davinci. Personally I embrace digital cinema and how its democratised filmmaking on a lower budget. And while I do have a deep appreciation for analogue medium in general (especially as a musician, engineer) I recognise it is more about the tactile experience and workflow than sound/image quality which can be closely emulated today in digital.

FWIW, I recently did a post about the doc the wife and I are working on. Some of our production insights there. Examples are posted too, so you can judge if what we're talking about measures up to your standards. Not the first time we've done that either. Yeah, it's a gear site first and foremost, but other info floats around too.

A well known tendency https://nofilmschool.com/second-screen And this in Italian can be easily read via Google translate: https://www.ilpost.it/2025/02/03/netflix-serie-secondo-schermo/ The dialogues of many Netflix-produced series are often didactic and informative: it frequently happens that a character summarises what has happened so far, or anticipates some future plot development in a more or less arbitrary way. They are written in this way to allow the most inattentive viewers to pick up the thread at any time, without having to go back or interrupt their viewing. Productions that include dialogues of this kind are usually associated with the expression 'second screen', because they are designed and written in such a way that they can be easily followed even while attention is focused on a 'first screen': that of the smartphone.

Agree with what everyone has said regarding there being many poor looking film movies that we forgot about, many great looking digital movies, and everything in between. I believe a better thesis would be, "movies looked better before smartphones were invented" A big reason that mainstream movies look bland is because they are no longer designed for a giant screen in a dark theater, nor even on a big flatscreen in your living room. They are increasingly consumed on 6" screens in broad daylight (as well as theaters and living rooms). Now to go on a sight tangent, the same can be said of writing. Often when I talk to friends, they'll say, "oh yeah, I saw that movie. It was on netflix in the background while I cleaned my house" To some degree, it's not that writers are worse, it's that modern writing is designed to be consumed at 50% attention with chunks missing. The percent of audience that watches every second at full attention is simply getting smaller. I don't believe that shift has anything to do with filmmaking technology.

Exactly. The viewer does not give a damn how it was made. A film or documentary must move feelings or make people think. If they do, who cares about the technical details? Only the insiders.

This take is a bit much. Plenty of bad films were shot on film, and plenty of great ones were shot digitally. It’s not the format that makes a movie good or bad it’s how you use it. Preferring film is fine, but saying digital ruined cinema is extreme. That said, I’m interested in Fuji’s upcoming Eterna film camera. If it delivers high quality in camera color, it could push DPs to lock in the final look while shooting, which is an interesting approach.

This. Yeah, we can look back at older films and remark about how nice they look, but I can name you just as many (and, frankly, probably more) that look like absolute dog shit visually. Ironically, some of those are my favorite films! But most of them weren't made to intentionally look that way, they just did because of budget limitations. There is a lot of really bad looking films out there though. In fact I'd say most films from the film era aren't any more remarkable looking than what is filmed today digitally. There certainly are exceptions, which is why I do agree to a certain extent that it's unfortunate that most everything has moved to digital, but I can't say that every film I watch today would look substantially better if it'd been shot on film, especially lower budget ones. It's really easy to look back with rose tinted glasses and say "everything looked better back when it was shot on film." I think the bigger issue with the move to digital is how disposable images have become in general. We all shoot thousands of pictures on our phones every year but most we never look at again after taking them. In fact, most of the time we put little thought into taking them. Or at least I am guilty of that. They just sit on our phones, taking up digital space waiting for the day when maybe we remember that we documented this moment or that moment. Whereas with film, or even video tape, aside from the camera itself, you were limited by how many pictures were left on the roll, how many rolls you could afford to buy, and then the cost of developing them. You also didn't get that immediate feedback of looking at a photo you just took to see how it turned out, instead you had to wait until it was developed. I remember going to sports events as a kid with my camera and only having two rolls of film. That was roughly what, 50-60 pictures total? I had to choose carefully what pictures I took less I run out of film and miss something extraordinary. I couldn't just waste pictures! Now though I'll take 60 pictures in the span of 5 minutes with my phone! Taking photographs or moving images was a much more thoughtful experience in the film days. Today that doesn't really exist, because content is so disposable. Even if you are fortunate enough to create something that breaks through, something else rapidly comes along to take the viewers attention away. With the rise of TikTok it has gotten even worse than it was during YouTube's peak. 15 seconds and then it's on to the next thing! Still, that isn't to say it all is bad. But it's not all good either.

Might be a bit of survivor bias here. The older movies that were shot on film might seem to be of a nicer IQ standard, but those are the ones that are still acknowledged. As an dude that went to the local 1$ 'grindhouse' theater rather regularly as a kid, I assure you that the quality of the image for the forgettable films were often nothing remarkable. However, I will say that the darker, deeper, contrasty look that was in fashion among better cinematographers back then is something I miss. Less is more. Too much detail in a scene can be a detriment at times. All that dynamic range often is not needed. Spielberg's West Side Story looked remarkable and like shit simultaneously, imo.

I kind of agree, but 2 things initially spring to mind. Thing A, a roll of film would need to revert back to costing 5 dollars instead of whatever it costs to buy & develop these days. Thing B, good luck trying to get this implemented. I feel the same about the other side of my own work, ie, in photography. I would LOVE to go back to being a pure film photographer but the single reason why I do not is a simple one and that is financially it would not fly today. Why, because around 75% of my turnover per job would go straight back out of the door and have to go on buying & processing film and at today's rates. I'd be out of business. Or double my rates and also go out of business because no one booked me. And then 2 other things. Thing C = not all older movies look great. Some...a lot even, look shit to my eyes. Thing D = not all modern movies look shit. Some...a lot even, look superb to my eyes. Summary, I think there is too much rose tinted spectacle nostalgia about 'The Good Old Days' and that everything today is trash. Everything today is not trash, - it's just different times. I am currently re-watching Ripley on Netflix. To my eyes, it is one of the most superb and cinematic creations ever made. Arguably it is not a movie per se, but a series, but actually it's a 6 hour movie in 8 parts. Almost every single frame looks superb. It's a modern day film noir that makes most older film noir look incredibly dated. OK, some of it is actually CGI. The boat scenes with (no spoilers), Tom & Dickie has a huge amount, but that's just a tool available to the modern filmmaker. Anyway, just my opinion. They also make a lot of shit today. Probably 19+ out of every 20 movies released today I would not wish to see, but they do still make some gems when the right people are involved.

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

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!

Yeah. Totally not depressing, that.