fuzzynormal

If you're unsure of the exact source of your buddy's income working with his camera, I'm going to assume it was almost exclusively work-for-hire. Unless your colleague is a stock footage content creator wunderkind. For most, however, as IronFilm said, in the stock footage game "many opportunities await to make dozens of ¢!" My point is that a subset of people doing creative jobs have the luxury of underwriting their own adventures. What they can or cannot get paid doesn't matter so much because they're already loaded. Nice "work" if you can get it. --And if you can get it, won't you tell me how? ;-)

And how? Through stock or as a for-hire shooter?

Can't really afford to jump on a plane unless I'm getting paid, so it's actually a silly biz model for me. Of course, for more affluent people that want an excuse to go somewhere on their own dime and "work," it's a decent rationalization. That's not snark. It's part of the reality of creative crafts. One sees it in many creative fields.

https://youtu.be/SuPNjVvTmCw?t=1m38s

It's real estate. As they say: "Location, location, location." Basically, it's even naturally lit rooms with lots of ambient light so you don't need 13 stops of DR. I've shot similar with a lowly 5DII. High end properties are designed by high end architects that know what they're doing. Light is a very high priority consideration. Thus, these properties just look awesome all around. You're shooting in space that has already considered the stuff that makes for impressive visuals. This is high-end marketing so they're probably on a really good camera, but I'm not seeing anything too surprising regarding some impressively extended DR. In fact, looks like they're over exposing a bit to grab shadow details.

Agreed, but those certain conditions don't happen a lot on the stuff I shoot, so 8-bit 4k for me! After effects + masking w/blur, NR, layer blending, and adding grain. The usual. No secret.

Season One. When McNulty, Bubbles, and Det. Kima go over their work and Bubbles has a little soliloquy --looked like a high school stage play he was so overlit!

Practically, I don't need it. IF a shot has a gradient that creates banding I can fudge over it with some post voodoo. Or, more likely, just live with it. *gasp!* Okay, I'll pardon you to retreat to the chaise and allow recovery of your delicate constitution... Hey, I'm a low-fi filmmaker, got better stuff to worry about. Now, if I was in a more up-market situation, it matters. But I ain't, so it's doesn't. And, on a side note, the IQ tech will be so democratized in 5 years it REALLY won't matter. ---------- Funny story: running a filmfest and one filmmaker had the most engaging narrative feature length film about love/family/redemption. Beautiful characters, etc, etc. Looked like garbage though. Shot on a Sony HDR-SR1. Bad lighting, exposure, color grading, composition, cinematography, highlight roll off was disgusting! ... Still somehow an engaging film! Writing and acting were so good. However, the director came up to me an hour before screening, distraught that he didn't give us the ProRes4:4:4 file (we were going to screen the .mp4) "Oh, please fix this problem! Please!" Dude, what problem, I thought. Your film looks like shit and we still like it. 4:4:4 ain't an issue. Anyway, screened the ProRes4:4:4 and he felt better. People is crazy, y'all. On a side note, I'm watching "The Wire" for the first time. Looks like crap too. (yes, even shot on film) Sets are so poorly lit or overlit -- and there's nothing really interesting going on with the cinematography. Oh well. Still good stuff to watch.

Well, I'm a wanna-be-something that's curious as to why AF is important to vloggers is all. Seems like many more staid vloggers could just avoid the camera messing up focus by simply not using AF.

Regarding auto-focus, maybe I'm watching the wrong vlog stuff on YouTube...but...do people really move around all that much? Most "Hey Guys, sorry I'm in my parent's basement today, but I want to show you..." video I've watched is a simple talking head w/jump cuts and the person is the same distance from the lens ALL. THE. TIME. So, ummm, why is AF the hot spec right now for cameras that these people want? Where exactly is the need for awesome AF? Or is it us, the enthusiast market that has more practical uses for it, that's clamoring for it?

For what I do, I'm finding ergos and IBIS extremely important, which is why I'm still missing owning a EM5II. [sad face] Well, I tend to not use the 180 shutter on my GH5. When shooting 24fps, I'll shoot a SS of 40 or 30, for instance. I'll even go to 25 depending. I like the increased blur a little better with LUMIX --but it's really a matter of taste... BTW, I do think shooting 50fps SS is perfectly fine and looks decent; just like to take the edge off my images a little bit. So so so little. IQ is certainly great, but it doesn't do the writing or acting.

Best of luck to you. Don't get sucked too far into corporate. It will crush your soul. You can't keep a good creative person down, so go for it.

Not bad, but the skin tones are a little off in a lot of those shots. Also, the main protagonist seems to have something wrong with his mic.

Point granted to team Canon on that one. I like playing with our X-Pro2 we have in house, (takes lovely stills) but it can't really do the heavy lifting of a demanding video gig. I'd actually rather shoot video for a job with a 5DII than the X-Pro2. It's not the the Xpro2 wouldn't make a better image, because it does, but getting there is not reassuring. In my experience, Olympus (only recently) and Panasonic are also solid video shooter hybrids too. It's not really about squeaking out a little bit of extra IQ on many jobs/tasks I have, so I tend to fret about other stuff.

Olympus EM5II too. People will whine that Oly's 1080 has too much moire, but whatevs. It does all the other stuff just fine. And, really, the IBIS is really, really, really good. Really. FWIW, I also shot 6 docs on the GX85. That camera is a great value. Sorry. I forgot sarcasm doesn't flush through the intertubes...

Yes.

But the colors! My god everyone! THE COLORS! THE COLORS!

There's detail in the highlights too. Yeah, Andrew explained it way back when. Basically using "Fast Color Corrector" you quickly even out the exposure. Here's another example from an poor-over-exposed shot from some raw b-roll. It's actually what's loaded in my Premiere at the moment: 1st image is what you see when you bring the clip into the editor. 2nd shot is with "Fast Color Corrector" applied for exposure adjustment. I'm not saying the Fuji is some sort of wonder-camera; better than the bee's knees, and YOUR NEXT PURCHASE! ....but it's certainly a decent and fun cam. It's hard not to love it for stills, that's for sure.

X-Pro2 4k is decent. It's a nice bonus for a cam released without it. Quirky, but useful if you're not too demanding. Fuji cams are fun, but I don't trust 'em for serious gigs like I would my GH5 or Olympus cameras. I do use the X-Pro2. (shot with it tonight, actually) Fuji colors look good out of the box...but you really need to tweak exposure in post. Pushing and pulling the color a tad helps too. That nature video above is underwhelming because of, I think, user error. The exposure is off --there's a lot of detail in the shadows being ignored there. Perhaps some of the earnest praise for those images is a good example of folks talking themselves into liking IQ because they're emotionally invested in their own personal Fuji purchase? I dunno, but I wouldn't hang my opinion on Fuji IQ from that clip.

I like SECAM.

Yeah, that's exactly it. Correct. All I got to say is that you should have your opinion taken away. I'm all about removing rights from strangers on the internet and destroying their freedoms. It's just a thing I like to do. Doing that...and hijacking threads from OP's. Life's mission: accomplished. I can die fulfilled. You sure you're not phasing into an alternate dimension? That could be scary.

As examples to show that pristine IQ isn't as important as some people think. The implication that a film looking "like shit" means that the movie is mediocre is a sad notion. Some of my favorite movies have image quality worse than a 1970's video camera. Well, I guess I'm glad someone here can talk with authority to the creative motivations of filmmakers like Steven Soderbergh and David Lynch. Lord knows they've had a hard time articulating themselves in the movie business. I suggest you reach out to them and help produce some of their future work --as apparently they're just doing stuff for no particular reason at all. [eyeroll] Unsure about revolutionary, but I do trust Soderbergh, as a prolific guy from an indy background, to be inventive, embrace the aesthetic, and use style for his storytelling. How well he hits that balance between style and substance, well, we'll see.

Seen "Inland Empire"? "28 Days Later"? "Pi"? The thing with ambitious film directors is that they go places for their stories without strictures. Automatically assuming that a film is "less" based on IQ is unfortunate understanding of the craft, imho. I'm going to go out in a limb and guess that the storytelling in Soderbergh's film might have a little more emotional heft than whatever y'all did back in the day.

Perhaps new sensor tech will go a long way to solve the limited ISO issue. I've also wondered why radically low ISO's have not been unavailable on cameras. Too lazy to look up why. Figure it must be some sort of limitation in the tech that probably could be solved, but not worth the effort.

Those expectations are getting less demanding all the time it seems. I dunno. I think I'm swimming in the shallow end of the pool.