fuzzynormal

For a guy, like Bloom, getting really nice images has a lot to do with talent and skill. It's not necessarily about the camera. People that know what they're doing can make most cameras look wonderful. Owning the same gear they do isn't a guarantee of much.

Yeah, I have a client that always needs 60fps. If this cam would do it, I'd buy it tomorrow.

Nope, that's for sure. It's always a compromise. Not that internal lighting can have an interesting look, but control of the light, if possible, is always a good way to go.

My company just finished a documentary shoot with a GX7 and the GM1 was the b-cam. Their image IQ is the same from my experience. We put a loupe (a cheap Hoodman) on the GM1 for focus assisting. Not a bad solution. Looks ugly as hell, but it works. It's my stealth camera. We use it to shoot clean and impressive video in locations where we need to fly under the radar. We also do a lot of run and gun small business work; shoot lots of restuarants. One of my main gigs in the past was filming restaurants and galleys on cruise ships. Most of that was done on NTSC cameras and 2/3" CCD sensors. That said, if there's an attractive evenly lit small business on the planet I've yet to find it. Here's my easy solution to make the lighting in businesses look better: Turn off their lights. Always. Then utilize the natural source as best you can and supplement with your own sources only if needed. 2 or 3 good LED's will do the trick since most cameras these days are decent in lower light. Many times just having some natural light pouring in with good drop off into the distance is enough to get by. Hitting your subject with some side rim/back light makes a ton of difference. Strategizing effective angles that take advantage of that new light is the final step. It's fast, simple, and effective. You do that and your work will look better, doesn't matter what camera it's shot on. If I could pound one sentiment into the heads of video and photography enthusiast it would be this: Stop worrying about camera bodies and lenses until you understand light and learn to control it. An education in this stuff is free on the interwebs. You can become a better shooter than most overnight with an earnest ambition to apply good lighting to your work...but since knowledge is not something you can purchase from B&H not as many people rant about it online.

For what you're trying to accomplish, my guess would have me starting with a GH4 with a longer prime lens (85mm)? Not sure how wide of a field of view you'd want. Not too close, not too wide; covering about 1/4th the field all the time? I'd also suggest you study up on the concept of resolution. Unlike what a make believe Hollywood narrative suggests, you can't zoom in during post, hit a button that goes "bloop, bloop, bzzzzz" and "enhance that there!" "Yeah! We can read the label on his pocket! We solved the crime!" You CAN post-zoom in on a 1080 image, but it might be too blurry for your uses. If you want impressive close ups you have to use optics or move your feet and get closer to the action. Now, since you can't move, you better shoot the highest resolution you can with an appropriate lens. 4K for sure. I've found that many stadium lights will give you a decent exposure around f5.6 and 800iso. Of course, that depends on the stadium. Smaller organizations' fields tend to be not as bright. Modern cameras like the GH4 tend to deliver a good picture at 800iso. Most slower zoom lenses are still in the 5.6 f-stop range. You'd want to stop down for better sharpness anyway. And old prime lenses are cheap. Whatever you do, try to test out your gear beforehand. If you're setting yourself for a long run at all this and plan on using the gear for awhile, maybe rent and test for a few days to find the right solution.

My first hire in the media bizness (so long ago I still had baby fat hanging off me) involved working with a local hometown idiot that had purchased his way into the profession. Back then, that was the key that unlocked the gate to such a career. So, he had a 6 figure investment in all this prosumer gear and couldn't do anything worthwhile with any of it other than show up and turn it on. Nothing creative happening at all. Funny thing was, he was very protective of his so called abilities and guarded his imaginary secrets of production like they were some sort of invaluable patent to success. I just remember thinking, "Um...no Larry, a star wipe isn't anything special." I quit later that week. Man, he was ticked-off when I walked out on him! One of the better decisions I made in my career, even though he made me feel like I was two inches tall on the way out the door. Point is, you succeed in a collaborative business by, you know, collaborating. Especially with people better than you. If you don't, you won't.

This. x5. My wife did media production once for a business/social group of women starting out in entrepreneurship, and dealing with the earnest but wholly misguided people in that circle was beyond ridiculous. We still do a lot of work for small business, and you can tell in 10 minutes which folks can actually do their job and which folks are on their way to failure.

As the guy in that really big suit once said, "stop making sense."

That video was with the older 5D and 7D.

Since we're all tangential at this point, anyone watch season 4 of "The Killing"? They switched to a different camera; was wondering if it's a Sony?

Just shot a documentary with a GX7 and GM1. No regrets.

From the POV of an old fart: Can someone explain brand loyalty to me if so inclined? For some odd reason I seem to see people investing themselves in a brand rather than technique. In my experience, I know this is kind of a legacy attitude among mid-level "pros" I've worked with. (Corporate media types) When you find something that solves a problem for you you tend to build a little trust with the brand...but these days gear development just moves so quickly and is acquired so cheaply that seems like an outdated notion. If Canon doesn't offer what you want, why fret about it? Move onto different gear. There's always going to be something serving the niche' market in which we're all active. If you invested in some camera body and you want to believe you made the right choice --and so you extoll the virtues every chance you get, what are you trying to accomplish exactly? Some sort of piece of mind for yourself? Affirmation of your superior shopping capabilities? A list of impressive features don't mean a thing if you have no clue or directed ambition on how to use them. I mean, I'd willingly hire someone with wonderful skill, enthusiasm, and an old 5DII than a self-righteous goof-ball and an FS700 shooting 4K. --I've made that mistake this past year. A 22 year old out shot a mid-40's dude and all his toys by a creative factor that would make your head spin. And, personally, I'd rather be the kid trying new stuff and busting butt to be creative rather than some jerk reading DxO Mark charts half the damn day. Here's a tangent: you know what matters more when making an awesome film or video? Superior Production Design. Sets, Wardrobe, Cast, Location. Do that on an impressive level and the work will almost always be better. Yeah, but that's not tech-centric, involves hard demanding logistic work, interpersonal skills to deal with people, and is boring as hell, right? This spec-centric stuff is really annoying me...but then, I'm old and cranky about everything anyway. Maybe I should question less why people want to brag about their cameras and ask why I'm on a website that caters to them? Dang, I'm really off the rails here!! Oh well.

If you're worried about technology ruining your ability to compete in this market, you're doing your job incorrectly or you're just not good enough at it. Heck, I've recently seen work (listed in this forum) where a kid with an old Ti is wildly more accomplished than a lot of us tech nerds with the newest and "bestest" camera.

"Does Cinema EOS mark the end of high spec Canon DSLR video?" If it does, why worry about it? They don't want to play in the market niche? No problem as I see it.

It doesn't exist yet. And it never will. I always want more than I can have.

And he can dance. And if Footloose taught me anything, it's that if you can dance, you can change the world.

Random additions: Orson Wells. Ron Howard. Jodi Foster. Angelina Jolie. Dexter Fletcher. Lake Bell. Tim Robbins. It's a long, long list. Damn near every actor with a bit of ability seems to give it a shot. Why that should discourage anyone interested in making their own stuff escapes me.

I'm the one that made the "arts high school" quip. The images in this movie example are nice enough and I found them impressive compared to what I'm usually able to accomplish. I wish I had the talent now to shoot consistently as such over the course of an entire production, much less be able to create images like that as an 17 year old kid in high-school. I'd like to see your reel; always interested in people with skill, especially since it must be better than this Oz example. I'll check out your profile here on EOSHD and see if you have links to your work. For what it's worth, I like butter pecan.

There's plenty of affordable glass from the 70's and 80's that are decently sharp but still have lots of flaws/character. When I want "character" on the cheap, I go to my set of Pentax A110 glass. Some folks just don't like these lenses, but I've been having fun with them and, for me, they deliver on sharpness. I also use weird Russian glass when sharp isn't as important. The INDUSTAR-69 is cheesy and useful from time to time. By removing the focus limit screw (a little hardware in the lens) you can achieve some nice macro as well.

Yeah. Sure it does... it must be a heck of a prestigious arts high school that you're talking about.

It's a pretty sweet camera if it hits your needs just right. I have a client that sends me overseas a few times a year for tourism run 'n gun work --and this gear is ideal for that sort of job. I handled it in Japan recently for awhile and found the stabilization to be better than anticipated. I wouldn't get it for an everything sort of camera (not that there is one anyway), but if it fits for your purposes, it's impressive as heck at that price point. ...I'm I'm not even going to be using it @4k...client demands 60fps on their footage, so I'll have it on 1080. I'll probably go the "buy it, use it, and sell it" route as her jobs come up. Or, if I'm feeling a little more adventurous I might get my hands on a hc-x1000, but I don't really like traveling developing countries with bigger gear that looks a bit more "pro." I've had enough of that hassle (shakedowns/permits/entrance denials) in the past. Anyway, thanks again for the camera review.

Oh, just wait a few minutes...

Wonderful, I'm turning my gear over early next year, and I appreciate the review for future considerations. Bottom line, all the new stuff is pretty freaking fantastic. I'm not too worried about the re-encode process, but thanks for the heads up. I still do that old-school approach anyway with my 1080 footage so the workflow wouldn't bother me.

Downscaling just always looks better. Heck, I'm of the age that I first realized this with VHS tapes. My home movie camera and the latest rental from Blockbuster both delivered, realistically, about 300 lines of horizontal resolution, but man...those film transfers just looked so much more cleaner. Still, your desire to know more of the "why" of it all --with comparisons seems like a worthwhile inquiry. In the meantime I operate under the naive wisdom of my 1980's be-kind-rewind experiences: more rez scaled into lower rez just looks good.

Yeah, that's the film. I liked it a lot. Personally, I found myself mesmerized at how many times their static shots would just unfold gracefully, subjects moving in and out of frame, or staying still inside it, while always informing the storytelling. If it was just style for style sake, like a ridiculous superficial movie such as Suckerpunch, I'd say it was 'hokum' too, but it's not. The B&W is very purposeful. It forces the viewer's perception of the story, I think. What I find cool about it all is that it's not too hard to understand technically HOW they do all the shots they do. Quite easy really. However, for someone like me, it would be near impossible to recreate their effective storytelling cinema. There's the rub. Even though it's considered minimalist by contemporary cinema style, it's artistically impressive --and if there's one thing I've discovered while trying to be a good craftsman in motion picture creation, simplicity and poignant is incredibly difficult to do well. The film is just a good illustration to me of how tech-centric blogs like this one (which I like a lot) focus their energy in askew direction. If you want to be a good film maker it's not about buying a great camera and owning the coolest new imaging toys, it's knowing how to be a great storyteller; art built upon superior craftsmanship. The gear matters, but it's not as important as beginners and neophytes seem to think it is. Owning the best paint brush in the world doesn't make one a good painter. Those that understand this early-on have a better shot at being successful than those (like me!) that did not. On the other hand, and this is me projecting my own foibles, I tend to think that for many people just playing the game of "awesome camera" ownership is their ultimate goal, whether they admit it or not...