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Aside from those very odd Pentax users I'd like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas, and a happy new year resolution of buying more cameras. What is on your wish list and how are you spending the Christmas holidays? 👍

I have a new setup and pipeline and I'm really happy with it. GH7 shooting V-Log in C4K Prores 422 internally, at around 500Mbps 14-140mm F3.5-5.6 lens for daytime, 12-35mm F2.8 for night-time K&F True Colour 1-5 stop vND Pipeline in Resolve: CST to DWG as working colour space Plugin for basic shot adjustments Film Look Creator for overall look (and for taking the digititis out of the image) ARRI709 LUT to get to 709 output I went on a walk on Monday to test the full setup, and it was a crazy hot day (37C/99F) and direct midday sun, so seriously challenging conditions. Here are a few grabs (be sure to click-through rather than viewing the preview files embedded in the post). My notes and impressions - while shooting: Setup was GH7, 14-140mm lens, vND, and a wrist-strap and that's it I used the integrated screen, showing histogram, zebras, and focus-peaking to monitor I used back-button focus to AF before hitting record, so no AF-C going on while shooting (and randomly changing its mind about what to focus on) All shots were 14-140mm at F5.6 for constant exposure The K&F 1-5 stop vND had enough range, when combined with the DR of the GH7, so I never needed to change settings, despite going in and out of shadow (and even inside, which isn't included in the above images) The vND had a much more consistent sky and colour render than my old (crappy) vND, so I'm really happy with it I did ETTR and bring images down in post, but my tests indicated that V-LOG is very linear so there are a good few stops of latitude there The "tripod mode" of IBIS, which locks the frame completely, was very effective (despite me being hot and not having eaten for hours) and I could hand-hold past 70mm without it needing to drift, and even at 140mm (280mm FF equivalent) the shots will be fine with a bit of stabilisation in post (C4K on 1080p timeline) I shot about 18mins of footage in about 1.5 hours, camera was on most of the time with screen at full brightness, and didn't get any notifications about the battery, and didn't look to see how much was left since I have a spare My notes and impressions - in post: I chose a Film Look Creator preset and then just messed with it for maybe 10 mins, while scrolling back and forth through the footage, and I deliberately pushed the contrast to create a really strong sense of the contrast between the beating sun and the deep shadows Shots had exposure adjusted (obviously, due to ETTR) and some had contrast lowered and a few had slight WB tweaks, but that's it I never felt like I was fighting with the footage, and it didn't feel like work when creating the look.. I've shot with a lot of cheap cameras with tiny sensors and you always feel like you're trying to make gold out of lead, but playing in the FLC was more like choosing between a large range of high-quality options I used another copy of the FLC to adjust exposure etc per shot, with it set to not impart and 'look'. The advantage of that is that in Resolve there is a mode (Shift-F) that maximises the preview image and gets rid of the GUI except for the vertical toolbar on the right-hand-side where the DCTL and OFX plugins are, so it's a way of getting almost a full-screen view but keeping the controls visible.. very useful if you don't have a control surface or a second monitor handy. I'll talk more about my thought process and how I got to this setup in a later post, and also go into some of the technical stuff (DR, high-ISO, etc) but more importantly than that, I finally feel like the tech has come of age. What I mean by that is that I now have a setup where: I can shoot with a conveniently sized setup that doesn't need a rig and is ergonomic to use It has the right usability features, such as histograms, zebras, focus-peaking etc internally The monitor is bright enough The GH7 plus lenses (14-140mm F3.5-5.6 and 12-35mm F2.8) are long enough and fast enough to shoot what I see, without being too large, heavy, or prohibitively expensive It has enough spec that it can deal with almost all the situations that I actually shoot in, with enough DR for the sun, enough ISO for night-time, and fans so it doesn't overheat before I do, etc It shoots internally using a colour space and codec that don't look cheap/amateurish and make me think about upgrading It doesn't fight with me in the colour grade Resolve and the Film Look Creator are able to easily give me the flexibility in post to match images and correct any weaknesses from shooting (e.g. if there's a bit of movement when shooting hand-held at 140mm) Resolve and the Film Look Creator are able to remove the 'digital/video' look and instead give me a range of options that don't look artificial and most importantly, contribute a feeling to the footage without distracting from the content of the images (this is, after all, the entire purpose of what we're doing here.....) For the first time it feels like I'm getting the results I want because of the equipment I have, rather than in spite of it.

There's a lot of whining about Panasonic not pushing hard enough in raw specs. Yet, many of these critics go silent when firmware updates completely transform the camera's usability. Panasonic focuses on features and tools that don’t generate the same hype as 4K 120fps or internal RAW—but they offer things like false color, shutter angle, and a lower price point. It’s just a different approach.

Went to Manchester for the firs time (at 60!) and it's very photogenic - I will definitely be returning (with a tripod).

Too true. Arri targets the feature film and commercial industry. Those industries have absolutely no incentive to use BM or anything cheaper. The rental cost of an Arri is one of the smallest line items in their budgets. Why would they experiment with something that saves a few bucks on the rental when they have years of experience, trust, rigging etc all geared around their usuals cameras of choice? You technically could shoot a movie with a BM camera or an FX30 or a bunch of other cameras, but why would you unless you need something small for a specific shot? It's like saying your such and such street car can go the same speed on a drag strip as an F1 car so they're going to dominate the F1 industry here pretty soon. Um, no. Why would they?

Can we talk about the GH7 in this thread?

I think people are being a lot more pessimistic than they need to be about this release and Lumix's future in general. As much as I am loathe to admit it, YouTubers are a big part of marketing these days and tons of them either went on the trip to Norway or were sent a camera to review, including prominent Sony, Canon, and Nikon shooters. Virtually all of them made positive videos about it. That's a move in the right direction, as far as marketing goes. The real professionals who did use the camera, including in real professional settings, were all extremely positive and compared it favorably to the competition while marveling at the price. It's a high resolution stills camera with excellent video features. A total 180 from what the original S1R was. Given what folks are saying and anecdotal evidence available, they seem to have things coming down the pipeline. They could be better at conveying that to us for sure, but there are enough hints out there. See: the new monitoring app. As someone that was very doom and gloom about Lumix for a while there and who still sometimes scratches his head about decisions they make, these are all positive steps. It's almost March. There are 9 months left in the year. Lets see what happens.

Not clickbait, despite sounding like it. I'd say that it threw a spanner in the works, but it was more like a hand-grenade. I went to South Korea on holiday, and despite having a mostly-sorted setup based on GX85, I took the BMMCC and ended up shooting almost the whole trip on it. The rig The rig consists of: OG BMMCC - the 1080p one from almost a decade ago 12-35mm F2.8 lens IR/UV cut filter cheap vND filter (tried to buy a new one there but retail shops didn't stock what I wanted) Ikan 3.5" monitor Smallrig monitor mount (tilts forwards) curly HDMI cable from amazon (really tidies the rig up) 3 x LP-E6 batteries (two are older Wasabi ones and one was genuine a Canon one I bought there) Peak Design arca-swiss (mounted on the bottom) random wrist strap (looped through the arca-swiss plate Sandisk 128Gb SD card This ended up being a killer setup. A few highlights of the rigs performance are... Professional equipment The BMMCC is a cinema camera with fans and designed to shoot in harsh environments. The 12-35 is a professional lens. No BS overheating snowflake influencer crap here. This gave me confidence to use it in (light) rain, heavy humidity and serious sweatiness, and basically to not baby it. Fixed aperture zoom lens When setting up for a shot the vND setting from the last shot is probably in the ballpark for this current shot, even when going straight from a one end of the zoom range to the other. Flexible zoom range The zoom range was from 30mm to about 100mm. Sometimes it wasn't quite as wide as I'd have liked, but it suited the environment as Seoul, with a population of around 10M people, is one of the worlds megacities and is seriously compact, so most compositions would simply contain too much stuff if they had a wider FOV. You always miss shots when travelling, but I felt like I didn't miss that many. OIS on a cinema camera, even at the wide end Not a lot of OIS options for 12mm lenses outside of zoom lenses. Light weight This is a full cinema camera rig with 12 items, and yet weighs about 850g / 1.9lb. My GH5 weighs 750g / 1.65lb with battery and SD card, BUT NO LENS. Dynamic range No choosing between the sky or shadows. When shooting uncontrolled situations like this you often see things in post that you didn't see while you were shooting, so the flexibility is super-useful. Ok, so that's all lovely and all, but what was so transformative about it? These are things you could probably work out from the specs... Grenade #1: Shooting slowly is (mostly) shooting honestly. It's a cinema camera, so it's slow as f to shoot with. Yes, I know that practice makes you faster, but my phone will expose and focus in the blink of an eye, so comparatively it's far slower. So, you see a composition and you stand in the right place. Then you adjust the monitor angle if not shooting from the hip (as I prefer). Then you adjust the ND to expose. Then you adjust the zoom for the composition. Then you adjust the focus. With this kind of setup you have to rely on peaking, so you adjust it back and forth to see how much peaking is the maximum, then zero in on that. Then you hit record. This means several things: You are immediately obvious when you stop and start fiddling with a camera in public. There's no hiding. People aren't stupid, especially these days. You cannot be this obvious without getting comfortable with it. If you don't learn to be comfortable then you'll mentally implode before getting any shots, forcing you to relax and just play that role. By the time that you actually hit record, most of the people who were staring at you will have gotten bored and gone back to what they were doing. They don't know you hit record, so the shot will contain people who aren't suddenly paying attention to you. This was a revelation for me because it forces a different way of shooting. When you have a fast camera, you can act like a street photographer. You watch the people, you see something about to happen, you quickly point the camera, and capture THE DECISIVE MOMENT. This means you are shooting specific people doing specific things. Good freaking luck doing that with a fully-manual cine camera. When you have a slow camera, you probably can't anticipate moments far enough in advance to be ready in time, so you think differently. You find a composition and shoot it, and anonymous people drift in and out of frame in ways you didn't specifically anticipate. Sure, you can frame up a background and then wait for people to walk through it, and you could even see someone interesting a few hundred meters away and be ready when they walk past, but it's still a good distance from seeing something 2s before it happens and grabbing it. This has a massive caveat though. It's not a good way to shoot people you know, unless you're directing them or they're basically stationary. The way I've come to understand the difference between cinema cameras and video cameras is that video cameras are designed to capture the world as it happens, and cinema cameras expect the world to bend around them. There's lots of overlap now with that line blurring, but the concept is still a useful one, and the cameras with the best image quality still tend to be very self-centred. Grendade #2: Fixed WB is awesome. I used to shoot auto-WB because I used to think that you wanted 'correct' WB. This mostly works, but leaves you with tiny WB 'errors' that change during the shot. I used to think that the alternative was a fixed WB that would either be correct (if you took a manual grey-card reading at every location or whenever the lighting changed) or you'd use a fixed WB and then have to change it in post. This is probably still true if you're doing something where the WB has to be 'correct', but the only situations I can think of where this would apply is for professional work. I shot the whole trip on 5600K. So, why wasn't this a 'problem' creating shots with 'wrong' WB? Well, shots with warm light sources look warm: Shots with cool light sources (like a blue sky) look cool: Shots taken on a 'grey old day' look grey: ... and light sources that aren't on the warm/cool line will show as being coloured but don't look wrong - they just sort of look like that's what they looked like: and sometimes can even look beautiful: More to come, too many images to attach!

I went to Japan and have the loaner S9 from Panasonic. I told them I am not in the camera review space like I used to be, and they still were kind enough to invite me. I plan on making a few videos with it, but haven't posted anything since the embargo because I am so unsure what to say. It seems everyone has already made a "First Look" video and many others have tried to apologize for accepting the free trip and camera. I don't feel bad for accepting the trip as I'm sure anyone else here would do also. I think all the conversation around this is generally healthy for our industry and why I personally took a step back from it all over the last two years after quitting Indy Mogul. Feel free to ask me anything you want. I promise to be honest.

I very much prefer the image of the OG S5 over the S5II X, but people really make a mountain out of a molehill when it comes to the "worse" image. It's really not that bad. In the year I've had it not one client or viewer has complained about the image; in fact it has been the exact opposite! I feel like cameras have plateaued so now people over analyze and overstate every little thing. But virtually all of this stuff doesn't matter to the audience that we are creating these images for. Anyone with any discernible talent will be able to take the S1RII and create compelling images with it. That bride is going to love the pictures you take, the corporate client is going to be ecstatic with the talking head interviews you shoot, the MMA school is going to be psyched with the promotional video you film, etc. As long as it's in focus, the colors are okay, and it's framed well, these folks aren't going to really care if it's a little noisier than the R5II or if the rolling shutter is slightly worse than the A7RV. I don't know how it is where you all live, but there are literally people making money using cheap Canon Rebel DSLRs and kit lenses in my area. I see friends post their wedding pictures, their kid's senior portraits, baby pictures, and all of that stuff on Facebook all of the time. Most of the time these photographers aren't even good at what they do, put people I know still go crazy over them and post these photos they paid for proudly on social media! These photographers still get paid work, not just because they are cheap (that certainly helps!) but because the average person's standards aren't all that high. That's not to say that we should lower our standards, just that we should remember the big picture (no pun intended) and stop worrying about the small things that aren't going to matter to 99.9% of our clients/audience.

People were pretty hysterical about the Lumix S9 when it was first announced. Now it's a relatively popular camera that people have decided is underrated. Even non-Lumix users bought and use it. If you look beyond the influencer noise and listen to what professionals are saying, they're all praising the S1RII. I know it's easy for them to be drowned out by the dudebros who were flown overseas and then flooded YouTube with videos of them listing the specs excitedly interspersed with shitty JPEGS and slow motion clips they took, but they are out there and have good things to say. Among other things, Manny says he doesn't have fun using his other cameras (he is a Sony and Canon shooter) but he actually has fun using the S1RII. He wants to put it through its paces more, but after using it on a shoot he has a lot of good things to say. Cam Mackey set up a shoot with it and showed how he worked with it in post. It sucks that so many people make videos ABOUT cameras, as opposed to making videos WITH the cameras and then giving their opinions on what using them is like.

From the reviews seen so far there is everything and nothing. GU tested it in "lab mode" and slaughtered it. He was smart to report the bugs to Pana who fixed them for him via fw updates. Other youtubers reported problems found by GU but they didn't get the updates and didn't even know they existed. So people who look at their reviews think it all sucks. For example, some say AF is not up to par. If you look at Richard Wong's review the AF is perfect and aligned with Sony. He has fw 1.0. he is the only one who tested extensively on animals and cars and there are some smart features. Other youtubers have tried it on real projects or real use cases and there is very little criticism and they speak very highly of it. Moving the camera left and right like crazy and screaming that the RS is terrible or claiming on paper that having only 12 stops without DR is like swearing in church, seems like bullshit to me. The beloved 5DMKII ML had 9 stops of DR and yet everyone was wetting their pants. In short, lab is one thing and reality is another. BTW the same youtubers who now blast the S1RII are the ones who would hate an S1R that we like a lot.

I think so but as a LUMIX, it has to have a gazillion video options. I get why most manufacturers believe they need to appeal to the broadest base possible, but at the same time, they miss the mark as a result. Personally, if I was Mr LUMIX, I’d offer 2 cameras at the same time and say, this one is the photo one and this one is the video one and both would be able to tread on each others toes a little, but would otherwise be clearly defined. Here though we have folks running 8k 1 hour plus tests and calling something a failure because it overheats. FFS, who needs to record continuously in 8k?

The holidays haven't been the same since my Mom passed in 2016, but I am trying to make the most of them after beating cancer last year! As far as cameras, I think I am set for 2025. I MIGHT swap out my two S5s for S5IIs, depending on how the year goes. Not that I am unhappy with my S5s, it would just make matching them with my S5II X in post easier. I also might snag a S9... we'll see! But overall I am pretty settled until I see how things look next year or in 2026, as far as Lumix goes. What I have (two S5s and a S5II X) are honestly cameras I could use until the wheels fall off and I'd be happy with them, I'm more just looking at the long term big picture as far as where I end up. Happy holidays to all of you!

I think Lumix is damned if they do, damned if they don't. I think we only have to look back to the GH6 to see why they may be holding back. Just months after releasing it they then released the G9 II with PDAF. Within a year they'd go on to release a GH7 with PDAF. With hindsight it feels as though the GH6 was rushed out. I think Panasonic might be in a similar situation with their higher end offerings. I hope that Lumix works towards improving their marketing and becoming more transparent with the photo/video community. When you're that far behind the other companies there really isn't a reason not to be. Even if you cannot be specific, letting it be known that you're not abandoning higher end users would probably help.

If only there was a member of this forum who uses L Mount for video and Sony for stills who has been praying for a ‘one & done’ constant aperture f2.8 lens ranging from 28 to about 100mm whilst weighing max 1kg. If only there was a member of this forum this lens was designed for…

Went to tea cafe / tea museum. Very formal in a handmade sort of traditional way. Barely graded stills:

It is close to perfect and the image still stands up today as one of the best you can possibly get. But it would be nice to have even a small update, like: Less heavy, a bit smaller Phase-detect AF In-camera LUT feature Stacked sensor for 4K/120p

Well I'm guessing that whatever massive feature set these new cameras have that a level meter isn't one of them

I am currently writing a guide to all the classic digicams from Y2k. And it has made me realise that I am getting a bit bored of full frame at F1.2. I think a similar thing has happened with anamorphic. The look has been held hostage by the ad world and cheapened, overused. So in a way it is quite refreshing to spend time with a Canon G2 from 2002 with (decent for the time) 2/3" sensor, or if you want a modern 2/3" sensor, the Fuji X-30. Also fun are the tiny Canon IXUS models with CHDK for raw, and some of the older smartphones like the iPhone 4S. It has made me think that if the light isn't right and the subject isn't interesting no amount of shallow DOF can make it worthwhile so why bother? And if the light IS right and the subject IS fantastic then a deep DOF can sometimes make it look even better, sometimes not - but it's definitely a valid creative choice. I also think the modern cameras are just getting too good... too clean, too clinical, too sharp, especially the modern lenses (be it anamorphic or otherwise). And we have had this discussion for about 15 years now and not a single manufacturer has listened. There is nobody in the modern camera industry fulfilling the niche of analogue / film compact replacement camera other than the y2k CCD digicams. And don't get me started on the desire for a Digital Bolex sequel!

Gentlemen, I think we can all agree that at least the FF aesthetic exists and it is all shallow DOF. Youtube told me so!

I can’t speak for YouTubers but one of my previous roles was writing magazine features and product reviews. In addition, I also covered the press only product launches and the major trade shows such as IBC, NAB and AES. At no time during any of that was I provided with prostitutes by any manufacturer. And God knows I asked them enough times.

I think it’s going to be the S35 Gerald1 tribute cam.

Maybe they meant their OWN FX3 rather than Sony’s.

So the forum is pretty good at the moment thanks to some spicy discussions, it would be boring if we all agreed all the time, but I also think we should encourage people to come back - big names from before like Mattias Burling , Dave Maze, they are missed. Maybe we could occasionally drop them a note to say so. I can't promote the forum myself, it just looks like I am spamming people with my blog. Maybe that's where you all come in 🙂 Would some of you be willing to post a few links here and there in popular Reddit groups, on DPReview and on social media groups? It would supercharge the place and get us noticed more... Then we'd have some great discussions with new people, and regain some control over the camera community in an independent way, rather than everything being hoovered up by the big US social media giants who are opening supporting a fascist regime at the moment. Never been a better moment to get our independence back from social media. Mark Zuckenberg and those like him are pure evil. The forum way is a better way. It offers everyone here a higher profile and higher involvement. The better our content, the better the discussions, the more people will come... I know a lot of forum posts have to reference other people's talking point or content, so a topic can devolve into lots and lots of URLs to social media, or YouTube video embeds. But rather than have rules around this, which I don't want to do, it would be great if we could encourage people to join who will use the forum a bit like having their own blog - Posting original hands-on opinions and content about cameras and shooting... Our own insight is better than constantly referring to that of others - It would be good for the community. Just some thoughts and open to more ideas too about how to grow this rather nice place that we've got.

The more I use mine the more dictionary definition of underrated this thing gets Best with small M mount prime lenses, or LTM...doesn't have to be fancy For autofocus best with a small Sigma L mount prime like 35mm F2 Smallrig grip is a must. The LUT feature gives everything on the display more impact during a shoot, stuff simply looks beautiful and exactly as you intended... and it's so immediate... And in general the camera is so fucking nimble and fast. Then there's the minimalism of it... the simplicity. It is truly one of those cameras that gets out the way and leaves you to enjoy shooting. Yes, build quality could be more high-end... yes, wish it had a mechanical shutter and an EVF... but really thats where the complaining ends as it has everything else and then some, and what it doesn't have like a stacked sensor, you can't reasonably complain about because it cost me a shade over £1000 (open box deal). Really glad they did not scrimp on the battery, it takes a big chonky one. If it had a powered hotshoe they could have sold me an EVF to go on the top... but for now I'm using the RX1 optical finder from Sony...

I am going to release on the blog a little EOSHD LOG C3 profile for Panasonic's full frame cameras and perhaps the GH6. Happy to give it out for free to any of you folk who'd like to try it out in return for a bit of feedback and some test shots. It will make your camera compatible with the ARRI look library and ALEXA LUTS. It should also be a bit easier to grade than V-LOG. It also brings ARRI LOG C wide colour gamut to the Panasonic cams. No need to wait for GH7 and pay $200 for the privilege! Happy to answer any questions relating to it and what cameras it'll work best on...

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

Well, my little black X-M5 finally arrived from Japan and wow, it’s tiny. Had some fun rigging it up as a tiny little micro cinema cam today LOL. USB C dummy battery arrives tomorrow and a couple little accessories to mount the Ninja V+ in a way that doesn’t look too ridiculous. Only complaint so far is the smallrig cage for it is a little overpriced and doesn’t come in all black. Just the strange steampunk looking retro vibes.

I'm in the same boat. I work for a non profit, so it's a steady 9-5. But I love the work, most of the projects are my own creations, so videos I can get somewhat excited about. My salary is modest, but steady. We drive a 14 year old vehicle and live in a 900 square foot house in the country. No debt other than the mortgage. Most of my work is from home in a small mini barn I converted into an office/studio. It's amazing the peace you can find from living a simple lifestyle. Our income is pretty small compared to many these days, but we live really comfortably. Owning things in cash, buying used, and not trying to keep up with the Jone's can go a long way in building a comfortable life.

The problem with LOG is first of all that the gamma assists are a bit rubbish. (Aside from the Panasonic S9 and cameras where you can load on a LUT and monitor with it, without resorting to some shitty external monitor) But on the more common and better specced cameras you can't do that... Nikon Z9, Z8, Sony a1, a7 IV, GFX 100, Z6 III, EOS R6 II and so on. Secondly you should never really shoot it WITHOUT a gamma assist. Contrast, tonality and light are a really important judgement in cinematography and you can't really see any of that with a very flat display. Sure you can toggle LOG profile on/off quick in the menu and judge... but doing so is a PITA every time you want to see the real contrast and lighting. The gamma assists are all quite bland looking and flat with not very much pop, I find. Then we come to the LOG profiles themselves... EOS R6 Mark II / R5 / R3 all have C-LOG3, which a lot of people complain about but I don't mind. One of the better ones and easier to grade. C-LOG2 is reserved for the Cinema EOS line. C-LOG3 is closer to the original C-LOG on the 1D C, I seem to remember. Sony a7 IV has S-LOG2 and S-LOG3, they offer the widest dynamic range of the bunch but you still have to get exposure perfect for optimal image quality. Gets noisy really fast if you under expose. N-LOG on the Nikon cameras needs the most colour correction, otherwise you have very green-olive skin. By the way, there is a very small difference in image quality between 50Mbit/s 10bit 420 H265 on the Sony a7 IV and the higher bitrate LOG formats in range of 200-500Mbit... yes even in S-LOG3! So you can save a lot of money and card space there. With standard gamma picture profiles you don't need to shoot 10bit... 8bit will look the same. People tend to overestimate higher numbers on the specs sheet. So those tips in summary: Don't shoot from a flat image off the back screen Nail exposure to get the maximum dynamic range benefit from LOG With modern codecs like H.265 in 4K/24p - don't bother with the higher bitrates in most cases, the laws of diminishing returns apply big time (Although if you're shooting 8K or high frame rates then 200-500Mbit/s is recommended) C-LOG3 is easiest to handle, with N-LOG last Hope that in-camera LUTs/monitoring becomes a common thing, it's really bad that it isn't even 12 years since LOG first came on the mirrorless camera scene.

Live from the exhibition floor… Well, it’s here but as expected it’s in a Perspex case making touching it impossible and the reflections and dim environment not exactly easy to get a decent picture of it especially on my ageing iPhone. What I can confirm though which Is what everyone wants to know is that it does have internal ND.

As far as the FX30 goes - well it's an excellent little camera. Very easy to use, produces a nice image and with the latest update even has shutter angle! A few of the lower light shots needed some NR adding in Resolve, but nothing outrageous. For the video above I didn't use Cineprint. CST, NR, Balance, Contrast, A dab of Film Look Creator then out through the DVR Kodak 2383 D55 LUT, via a CST to Cineon.

Let's take a moment to appreciate the old treasure that is the Nikon Z6 OG, which couldn't have aged better even if it were deposited in an oak barrel in Scotland for the past 6 years. First of all it is £650 now. Secondly of course it is full frame whereas a lot of the other options for this price are crop sensor. Many of the other mirrorless full frame cameras have aged quite badly. The Panasonic S1 is superseded by a smaller cheaper camera with better AF. The Canon EOS R classic has been superseded twice by the R6 and R6 II. The formula of Z6 on the other hand has only merely been tweaked with the Z6 II that doesn't add a huge amount extra, because it just doesn't need to. And the Z8 / Z9 are insanely more money than £650. I like that it has such nice colour science out the box. It also has better custom picture profile management than Canon. The IBIS is superior to the Canon EOS R3 in every way, let alone the EOS R5 or R6 II. The 4K video and 6K sensor is superb in low light, better than the 8K+ stuff. And despite now being very cheap the top LCD and enormous, detailed EVF hold up very favourably today, in fact the EVF competes with some of the best even in 2024. The ergonomics are excellent, it doesn't put a foot wrong in terms of what it tries to do. And what it doesn't do, you probably don't need. OK, so there's no 4K/60p, or faster stacked sensor, and 120fps is limited to 1080p, but everything feels fast and responsive, including the on-sensor phase-detect AF. It is much smaller and lighter than the Panasonic S1 or S1H, yet with phase-detect AF and a very similar sensor under the hood. Z mount has also ripened well... It has a really good line up of lenses and adapters now, including the nifty Leica M mount autofocus adapter which will turn every manual focus lens into a fast and snappy autofocus optic. Plus it's the only mirrorless mount that adapts to Sony E! So you can put your native Sony mirrorless lenses on there and everything works. I can't think of a better deal for £650 at the moment on the used market for cameras. Curious to hear other opinions and what's changed in Nikon land since it came out those long 6 years ago in 2018. I can't for the life of me think of another 6 year old camera that has aged this well.

For you vintage lens fans, here's an oldie but a goodie... I was able to get out over the weekend with my FP and I finally tested the 10bit cDNG mode... hat tip to @BTM_Pix for recommending that mode... feels really solid while saving some storage space... and I brought out the Minolta MC 55mm 1.7. Wide open it's a little glowy, but not bad, but stopped down to 2.8 and I feel it shines...

Shot with the BMMCC in Myeongdong for 2.5 hours in the (light) rain today. It's a trooper. Images barely graded as usual. and a POV pic of the setup. I might have gone a touch dark on the grade, but these were just taken from checking dailies to catch any tech or usage issues. I think I'm getting the hang of this.

A few frames from yesterday.. Almost no grading done.

Love the EF 40mm f2.8 pancake. It lives on my R5C for basic run n gun and gimbal stuff.

And PS, I'm not laughing at you, but laughing at the imaginary scenario where as a one man band hybrid shooter, I attempt to juggle 3x zero IBIS or AF cameras that weigh about 5x as much and cost about that also. If not more. I also 'dismissed' anything from BM, the Sony Burano and the Alexa LF.

And as I was saying before I rudely interrupted myself, the A7RV was always lurking in the wings. Fantastic stills camera with option of 60mp full frame super-detailed files but ability to shoot 26mp crop at a slightly higher res than 24mp FF cameras. That's flexibility! AF is just best in class. Rear screen is superb in both resolution and how it rotates and tilts etc. All 3 Tamron lenses are native so all niggles re. performance, reliability and corrections etc removed. It's tiny for what it is and so fits with my mantra of 'smaller, lighter, faster'. My only criticism is it takes a stoopid cfexpress type A card, but hey ho, I got a 500GB for €270 so can't really complain... So in summary, happy days. The proof of the pudding as they say is in the eating and that will be the rest of this season, but as far as I am concerned, I have now removed every issue I previously had to juggle or deal with, whether it be cameras, or lenses, or audio, or lighting or tripod heads sagging or gimbals having an electronic jerking fit mid shoot, all whilst sweating profusely on a 35+ degree Celcius French Summers day. Not that we have head any of those this year. Yet... To conclude, anyone that is interested, feel free too ask anything.

The key to this approach is to maximise the savings to offset the cost of the trip to Japan so you get together a massive and definitive list of everything camera and lens wise that you will ever, ever, ever need and buy it in one go. It has to be all the stuff you'll ever need though so you won't ever have to buy anything else ever again in your photographic career. I've done that on fourteen different occasions now.

Official certification by ARRI is surprising indeed! If anything can cause an explosion in seeing Panasonic mirrorless on film sets I work on, it would be THIS! Would instantly make the GH7 the #1 choice for crash cam / B Cam / etc, anything that needs very awkward mounting, such as mounting a camera for a shower scene or riding a motorbike or a snorricam.

Well, its taken 8 pages but we finally got from Gerald Undone to Trousers Undone.

The Single Most important thing, "has Gerald been invited or Not?" On a more serious note, I feel Panasonic can squeeze out another 1/2 of dynamic range (from the G9ii) by tweaking the VLog, improving heat management and improving the Sensor coating further. That's 11.8 (G9ii) + 0.5 stops. That Full Frame territory. A few flavours of ProRes, BRAW and RAW wouldn't be too bad. They could shrink that horrible YAGH attachment that they made for the GH4, to about 1/3rd it's size, and have external multiple flavour RAW in the recorder.

Gentlemen, warm up your keyboards... remember, no imperfection shouldn't be blown completely out of proportion!

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My experience with Panasonic USA hasn't been the same as his experience. I have been told explicitly that they want our honest feedback and opinions and they have never had any say or sway in the content. The only "fear" certain creators have is not getting invited to the next event, which is all in their mind. If you make a positive or negative video... just simply honest, I don't think that will ruin your chance at "going to the next event". IDK. I'm moving on from this. Taking a step away from the industry in general. Already have almost both my feet out the door.

This is hilarious. Some Moral High Ground Fable was Woven by some guy named Gerald, whose sulking cause he didn't get invited to a launch party, and people have started bashing the whole world. This is ludicrous. If he doesn't get invited to the Academy Awards next year, he'll probably have an absolute meltdown.

Disclaimer: I'm an old. Also, this rant is completely contextual to two concurrent projects I'm doing. I'm gonna blow some steam here. So, been making a no-budget passion project documentary with my wife and have found myself grabbing my (2017) EM10iii more than half the time to capture our 24p footage. We have a FUJI XT5 --as well as our (also long in the tooth) GH5 that specs wise does a lot better, but here we are running around with a device that is technically inferior. The issue is that it's not technically inferior by much when you get right down to it. For what we're doing, the divide between 8bit video and 10bit video isn't such a big deal. We're on manual lenses, and, honestly, the image from the EM10iii+our lenses is dang good. Paid $300 for this camera. Seems hard to imagine a cheap cam would be what's used over more advanced gear, but we are certainly doing so. Funny thing is, I can't rely on the XT5 (and it's admittedly gorgeous colors) because it overheats(!), and while I like the GH5 results, I don't like using the camera as much as I like handling the Oly. Perhaps it's a mix of things. Size, ergos, what we DON'T need from the feature set, knowing what'll ultimately work for our particular production, and a weird little feature of the Oly has (2x punch in) that the GH5 does not. Anyone else holding onto (and often using) old inferior gear because it's good enough and not really chasing new tech anymore? I'll testify without irony that we've achieved better footage with this little camera than another million dollar + doc film I'm working on which used an ARRI. Why? Because subjects in a doc don't really give a shit when it's a single unassuming shmo running around with a small modest camera like the EM10. People DO give a shit when they're in front of a giant rigged out ARRI and a crew of 9 self-important shmos flitting around with their serious demeanors and a gaggle of mobile video-village gear in tow. And people in a doc behave correspondingly: Not naturally. They're performative. I'm left editing a bunch of dry useless footage from the ARRI shoot. Additionally not much actual quantity of footage because they were so damn immobile. Lame. That's a hill I'll die on regarding doc film making. When filmmakers put their gear fetish above good content acquisition. Sometimes that requires big sophisticated gear, sometimes not. Gotta be honest with yourself about that. Anyway... Finally, the doc we're working on will be mastered in 1080. If anyone can successfully convince me that's not good enough for a doc screener, I'll entertain the argument, but 1080 24p is fine to my eyes. /rant.

We all know that cameras produce (sometimes dramatically) different images and image quality, and yet we also know that within a given price range those same cameras typically use the same sensors from Sony and are recording to the same codecs in basically the same bitrates. It's maddening! So, WTF is going on? Well, I just came upon this talk below, which goes through and demonstrates some of the inner workings in greater detail than I had previously seen: It's long, but here's my notes... Firstly, how you de-mosaic / de-bayer the image really matters, with some algorithms being higher quality and require higher processing power: (Click on the images to zoom in - quality isn't the best but the effects are visible) If you're not shooting RAW then this will be done in-camera, and if your manufacturer skimped on the processor they put in there, this will be happening to your footage. If the camera is scaling the image, then the quality of this matters too: and if the scaling even gets done in the wrong colour space then it can really screw things up: There's more discussions in there, especially around colour science which has been discussed to death, but I thought these might be illuminating as it's not something we get to see that much because it's buried in the camera and typically it's not something we can easily play with in the NLE. All these add up to a fundamental principle that I have been gradually gravitating towards. If you're shooting non-RAW then shoot in the highest resolution you can shoot in, and just un-sharpen (blur) the image in post. Shooting in the highest resolution means that your camera will be doing the least downscaling (or none), and most glitches and bad processing will be at the pixel-level, which means that the higher the resolution the smaller those glitches and errors compared to the size of the image, and un-sharpening de-emphasises these in the footage. You might notice that all of these shortcomings make the footage sharper, not duller, so the errors have made your footage sharp but in a way that it never was - it's fictional sharpness. Also, the more modern displays are also themselves becoming sharper, so it's no wonder that footage all now looks like those glitch websites from the late 90s that were trying to be cool but looked like a graphic designer threw up into them... FilmLight (who make BaseLight which is the Resolve competitor that costs as much as a house) seem to be on a mission to get deeper into the image and bring along the industry on that journey, and I'm really appreciative of their efforts as they're providing more insight into things we can do to get better images and get more value from our limited budgets.