Trek of Joy

Disagree with this, the PASM dial with 3 custom settings and the vast amount of customization with all the buttons and extra command dials the FX lacks, make the hybrids like the a7sIII and a7IV much easier to shoot with. I bounce between 24/60/120p on C1/2/3 and adjust everything without using the menus. The a7IV is even better since you can bounce between photo/video/S&Q with the switch under the PASM dial. My menu and the Fn menu put all your settings anywhere you want them. Plus they have EVF's which are far better than the crappy LCD's Sony puts on its cameras. The XLR adapters give you identical audio options and many don't use/need timecode. Plus the a7's are far better photo cameras if you want that versatility. But most importantly, the a7sIII/a7IV have a better image. I like the concept of the FX30, but its execution is underwhelming IMO. And as a hybrid it really falls short. Lots of great options these days. Cheers Chris

Amazing! Having spent a lot of time in Africa and other wildlife areas I’m super jealous. Haven’t been able to get any really great leopard or jaguar content. Yet. 👍 cheers chris

I have a Ninja V that sees almost no use. The BMMCC would at least give it some life. 😂 Given the need to rig the camera a bit because of the battery, it really doesn’t matter much beyond that to me since the Ninja on a top handle isn’t cumbersome with other rig bits. Still kicking myself for a missed auction back in fall 2021 that closed under $500 with a couple m43 lenses, full cage setup and a ton of accessories. A perfect starter kit. Grrr. cheers chris

Stills are single shot and obviously electronic shutter only. No bursts, no bracketing, nothing. RS will also be an issue for moving subjects, same for banding at some shutter speeds with artificial light. Its baffling why Sony didn't add the same still features its hybrid cameras have, even without a physical shutter. The whole "its a cinema camera" argument is silly because its not more of a cinema camera than FX3 or even the a7IV or a7sIII. The FX30 is a mediocre photo camera at best. Which is a shame since its the first APS-c camera with a new, faster readout sensor, instead of the tired jello vision 24mp sensor they've been rolling out the last decade. Cheers Chris

Then linear focus motors on the recent Sony's still outperform Sigma (less stepping/hunting, smoother focus pulls) and they work better with active stabilization. The S5II looks really good, but lenses are still lacking in the L-mount. Its a major advantage with Sony, pretty much everything is a native lens from Sony or 3rd parties. But I'd still go a7sIII over all of the other video centric options right now. Its just so good. Cheers Chris

If you only need 60p, I would go a7IV or a used a7sIII over the FX30. I have both, love them. Not impressed by the low light of the FX30. I shoot the a7IV alongside my a7sIII and its been great. I have a copy that has no overheating issues. I posted my tests in the thread linked above. Some have copies that are much worse. If I were buying new, I'd stress test it and exchange if it overheats quickly. You can mix and match FF and crop lenses too, the small f/1.4 Sigma primes sell for about $200 used for a ton of light gathering when shooting 60p. The one downside in comparison is audio, but the FX XLR handle can be mounted on the a7's cage with an adapter from Smallrig if you can't find the other XLR adapters. But for me, if you're more video focused, a7sIII used prices are not far above $2000. For the cash its an unbeatable value - better RS and DR than the others. Get a cheap a6000 if you want higher mp stills. I keep an a6300 for stills when shooting video. Cheers Chris

Forgot about the c100 mkII as well - DPAF, ND's, Clog, XLR audio, 60p and so on. When prices hit $500 or so, I'll give it a look. 1080p is plenty for social and most deliverables. But everything is just so easy with the a7sIII, I haven't given many video cameras a second look in a couple years. I'm always thinking the grass is greener with the BM Micro. So many cool options, I just don't like having a lot of gear sitting around that doesn't get used. Chris

The 5d3, EOS M - for ML, and the Blackmagic Micro (massive thread on this forum) are the only OG's on my radar. I just don't have any EF or m43 lenses. Being all Sony has its drawbacks LOL! Don't have CF cards for the 5d3 either. But those three are at the top of my list. With the obnoxious prices for the BM Micro, the EOS M is probably my tinker cam of choice. Cheers Chris

Honestly an a7sIV with a stacked 33mp sensor would be the perfect hybrid for me. I'd buy 3! Hell, even if they took the a9II's 24mp sensor and added the new processor so we have 4k120p and excellent DR would be fine. But nobody is going to build the perfect hybrid below the Z9/A1, because then I wouldn't be forced to buy the a7sIII and a7IV and even consider the a7rV as a primary photo and video backup cam. The r5 was close to unicorn status until the overheating issue reared its ugly head. If the rumored r5II can deliver, my Sony days may be numbered. Lenses are the one Canon RF bugaboo, not doing the EF adapter bullshit. But there's a massive gap in the $4000 range for a unicorn (completely ignoring Panasonic since they pretend PDAF doesn't exist LOL!). We've said this for a decade - Nikon has no video line to protect, just do it. Sadly nobody will. Chris

If you're in North America, I'd use Fred Miranda's buy/sell board. Check price history with recent listings, be very honest about the condition and post lots of photos. I've bought and sold dozens of cameras and lenses over the last 10 years there. Screw eBay. Too many reports of buyers claiming they weren't shipped the items and getting full refunds with ebay's buyer protection. And there's no way to dispute if its a fake claim. Hell no, I would never sell anything of value on eBay. Marketplace is a dumpster fire of scammers. Its tiresome with all the "kindly send me your info" scam BS. Chris

As much as I want to move to Fuji, this is what keeps me in Sony camp. The subject/face/eye AF is just remarkable - with both photos and video - on my a7IV and the 2.5 year old a7sIII. And you don't need the latest GM linear lenses for excellent results, I use the pedestrian 35/85 1.8's and they're brilliant performers. I'm farsighted with glasses for reading, when shooting outside its tough to see both my subject and the LCD without constantly shuffling my glasses around. So I mostly rely on either the EVF or Sony's touch tracking (something Fuji also lacks) and I rarely miss a shot. I really want to see Fuji reach Canon/Sony and even Z9 levels, but they just can't seem to crack the code. I was about to sell my a6300 and some other rarely used gear (looking at you Ninja V impulse purchase LOL!) to tinker with the XH2, but I'm pausing that plan until Fuji addresses this with an update. Cheers Chris

For what you do that's a solid lineup. I'm in the same boat, shoot tons of photos and video, and I'm actually considering shrinking my kit a bit with all the recent aps-c lens announcements and the FX30 - combined with either my a7IV as my photo workhorse or the a7rV. The 26mp crop mode for stills on the rV makes for a lot of versatility. Just an FYI, the Tamron RXD lenses are not quite as good as the VXD lenses from an AF standpoint. They still perform well, I ran the original 28-75 a lot on the a7sIII, never had any major issues. The newer version is better. The linear motors are smoother. The 35-150 is awesome. If I could find one, it would live on one of my bodies. Mixing aps-c and FF complicates things a bit lens wise for me, but with small/fast zooms like the Tamron's and the new Sigma 18-50/2.8, it really has me itching to downsize a bit and move from the a7sIII to the FX30. The complete lack of photo features gives me pause, as I actually do shoot a fair number of photos with the a7sIII. I get its cost cutting to hit that price point, but not having a shutter and single shot only with the FX30 is a numb nut decision to gimp the camera. Cheers Chris

Yeah that one is on my list. Everything they went through, along with managing Brando and Dennis Hopper - its amazing the movie was finished. Chris

Thank you, I'll check it out! Chris

Awesome, thanks so much! It doesn't have to be big features or anything, just want different perspectives on creating a film, the wide variety of crew members, scheduling, locations, crew management, and actually shooting. I appreciate the suggestions. Cheers Chris

Thank you! These do help as I'm trying to show a bit of every facet of production, and sound is obviously very important. Cheers! Chris

Peeps, I'm working with some students and searching for more films like Hearts of Darkness or Burden of Dreams that take a deep dive into the making of a film. It doesn't have to be feature length, but I'd prefer if it were about productions that involved a crew, a budget, a schedule and so on that show the challenges of a production and how those challenges were overcome. I have Netflix, Amazon and a smart TV with all the freebies. Thanks in advance. Chris

IIRC from the Fuji presentation or one of the reviews - I can't remember after watching so many LOL - right now the 18-120 is the only lens that doesn't suffer from the exposure stepping. Most reviews I've seen didn't have that lens. The parfocal and internal zoom is nice though. Aperture adjustments are supposed to be stepless as well, and Fuji claims almost no focus breathing. This lens looks like a great video workhorse. Too bad its not f/2.8. Chris

The a7IV can be a little more flexible ISO-wise (with a lot of caveats) since the a7sIII is awful at 3200/6400, meaning you have to skip those ISO's and just jump to 12800 for the cleanest image. If you look at comparisons there's really no difference at 12800 noise-wise and above until the a7IV reaches its max at 51200, plus the IV is more detailed since its oversampled and doesn't seem to have the overly aggressive NR the a7sIII does. But the a7sIII has a huge advantage with rolling shutter, overheating, and FF 4k60p plus a minimal crop for 4k120p. The a7IV has pretty bad RS in FF mode, but really good in s35 mode. Its basically Sony's best aps-c video hybrid that can shoot FF 4k 24/30p. Chris

I own the a7sIII and in many cases its definitely more than enough. You just have to be a little more deliberate in some situations where a heavy crop leaves you with barely enough for IG. But the images look much better enlarged than my iPhone which is also 12mp. But my other camera is 33mp a7IV and my previous other cameras were the 36mp a7r and the a7rII/a7rIII at 42mp. When shooting landscapes/cityscapes and wildlife, there's a lot of flexibility with more mp. One of my favorite things to do is shoot sunrises and crop tight on the sun. I can usually get 2-3 good shots out of a single image. With wildlife I'm almost always in crop mode - even with the 200-600 - and usually crop a bit more in post. So 12mp doesn't cut it there. But outside of that its mostly fine and I use my a7sIII all the time for stills - the low rolling shutter means I can pretty much always use electronic shutter which saves wear on the mechanical shutter. If you're printing - which everyone should do to showcase your images - a duck on the water won't show the difference between 12 & 42MP, but a city skyline shot will once you get larger than about 8x11" (A4) or so. Its really cool to see fine details in a large print that more mp reveals. People always talk about "normal viewing distances" but I always get my nose right up against an image and pixel peep details. Almost everyone I've seen looking at photos on a wall does the same, so the extra detail is really cool IMO. But for social/web its totally not needed. Chris

Don't forget there's also Active stabilization with the recent Sony's like the a7sIII and a7IV, which adds to IBIS with a slight crop, no catalyst browse needed. It's really, really good in most cases and easily as good as any other FF option and many times looks as good as the m43 standouts. If Sony is at the physical limits of stabilization because of the mount diameter, then digital options are the only options. Fuji has tons of extra space and still can't figure it out after a few generations. Fuji is already a small niche brand that relies on Instax to keep its camera division afloat. Canon and Nikon rolling out replacements for their entry level DSLR's and Sony pushing smaller FF cameras/lenses will eat into Fuji's already minuscule market share. They've built a good system overall, but they've hit a ceiling with their stabilization and AF that's a few steps below the big 3. Quite frankly I'm surprised they're not using all this new processor power and sensor speed to do things like focus stacking, a pixel shift high res mode and even tap to track or eliminating EVF blackout to set themselves apart from the rapidly expanding competition in the RF/Z mounts. Even the new Olympus looks really good, but like the XH2s, its overpriced for its segment. For all their AF advances, its still not as intuitive to use as Canon or Sony and its not as good. That's going to drag them down in any comparison test. Even if they get it sorted down the line, the story of that model is written once its available to consumers and we get flooded with real world experiences. Chris

Had high hopes for this one as I would like to move back to Fuji, but I guess I'll be sticking with Sony for the foreseeable future. AF and jerky IBIS continues to be a letdown despite all the strides with a stacked sensor, framerates, prores internal and so on. They've had years to get it sorted and still can't. Same with the exposure changing when zooming. My XT2 did that 6 years ago. SMH. They weren't able to make meaningful improvements through updates with video AF on previous cameras, it just seems like Fuji just can't crack the code. Even Nikon got it sorted on the Z9 after only a couple years in the mirrorless game. The PASM dial is welcome for me since I've never use the top dials, but movie mode is on the other side of the dial from M. Its odd they didn't just use the stills/movie switch from their other cameras since its supposed to be their ultimate hybrid, or simply put movie next to M to make it easy to switch between them. From what I've seen hitting record in a stills mode forces automatic settings when recording. FW should be able to make it default to your last recording settings, but that's just dumb. The whole package feels half baked with the infamous Fuji lockups too. So close, but not quite there yet. You almost had me Fuji.... Chris

That one really jumped out at me too, a little NR gets you a lot more useable info. Hopefully we see some comparisons with FF competitors. I miss shooting Fuji, but Sony (mostly because of the amazing AF) has my my life a lot easier and the Phantom Luts make getting great color Childs play with 10-bit slog3. Chris

Netflix - and Amazon like that 4k (and in Amazon's case HDR) goodness. It doesn't matter if its not needed or if it doesn't add anything to the story, it makes people feel good about buying a 4k tv and having something in 4kHDR to watch. That adds to their subscriber base, keeps profits high and shareholders happy, and gets them to keep churning out content. Here in the US I can get a 65" 4k HDR tv for under $400, 1080p is dead at the retail level. Its crazy how fast that happened too, three or four years ago HDTV's were still a massive part of the mix. Now they're throwaway sets not even worthy of a live display at Best Buy or Walmart, just cheap aisle fillers. Netflix and Amazon know this better than anyone, and the Netflix approved camera list clearly reflects that. Chris

I'm about to invest in either the Kase, Freewell or K&F mag filter system and replace all my screw on and 100mm filters with one system, just can't decide which one. Being able to mix and match between ND/CPL/Mist and so on is a huge plus. The magnetic thing looks like a great solution for run and gun field work. Just trying to decide on which system has everything I need and such and do the numbers with step up rings, extra caps and all the bits. Chris