Benjamin Hilton

I know the feeling...not a m4/3 fan myself, but the feeling of an era coming to an end with letting go of beloved camera systems. For me it was my FS100, I got so much out of that camera over hundreds of projects it still holds a special place of nostalgia in my heart, even though it was technically a terrible camera in many ways.

Honesty stuff like this makes me wish Apple would take their phone processing and put it into a super 35 sensor one of these days...Can you imagine if we had modern smart phone processing in a quality Sony chip?

Yeah totally. I would venture to guess though that they put in more effort trying to shoot on an iphone for Tangerine than they would have put in with literally any camera. Plus they couldn't have replicated the look with literally any other camera and a decent colorist. It was basically about the unique idea, which is fine, just not a good reason to shoot other projects on a phone, unless you are getting paid by Apple or something to do it

Kind of like Gerber dropping commercials "proving" they can build a house with a multi tool. You probably can, but if you are going to all the trouble of building, for goodness sake go out and buy yourself a real drill and tape measure. You'll thank yourself a thousand times over.

That's kind of the thing. Phones can look great, but overall are really tough to film anything serious with. For stuff like Kye is doing and with the right post processing, they can look great. But for more serious narrative or doc work, they are really the wrong tool for the job. Weird HDR, internal storage limitations, overheating, warpy stabilization, hard to manual focus, lens limitations, ND filter hangups, the list goes on and on. If it's all you have, use it. But I would never recommend buying a phone as a camera specifically. You can basically sink that $600-800 into any basic DSLR setup and not only get a better image, but also save yourself a world of headache with actual usability.

This is 100% spot on. I have a workflow I use for specific cameras. My standard color science is dropped onto my 5" monitor via LUT. In post I apply the same color science with minimal corrections. Sometimes I go on to do a specific grade, but 90% of the time I stick with that because it looks fantastic. This workflow is really awesome because I can really trust what I see on the monitor and fix problems in camera as I go.

IBIS is way too useful of a tool to give up. It's not a replacement for anything, all old school tools still have their place, it's just another really useful tool at times. For doc work I can't tell you how many times I would have killed to have some form of IBIS on a shot and didn't have it back in the day. I do steadicam and tripod work a lot, but I can't tell you how amazing it has been to be able to grab a shot at 200mm with the camera balanced on my knee or pressed up against a wall and it actually look rock solid with IBIS.

I shoot and edit professional content all day long. While I would love to upgrade to a Red Komodo, or Fx6 or something, I'm still using GH5s, G85s, an S1, etc because I can't really justify the costs of upgrading. It would be fun, but I know the films I'm working on would be much better off dropping that 10k into production instead of gear. I just shot an entire $50k doc on an S1 and Canon R6 and am totally happy with the final look. Realistically I think if I get a new camera in the next couple of years, it will be a FS7 or something. Solid image like the S1, just beautiful ergonomics for doc work. Every time I use one it just feels like driving a luxury car... Not necessarily a good business decision, but purely for the joy of use. Not so hard of on the wallet thankfully used these days too. While upgrading gear is really fun, I think at the end of the day sticking with the same stuff for years on end is the best thing you can do for your image quality, especially if you are working with something decent (like anything made in the last five years)

I think one side to this whole thing is the fact that for some of us we focus on the other aspects of the business all day long: business, pitching, writing, editing etc. Sometimes having a place to discuss cameras and lights and stuff is just plain fun and relaxing, somewhat pointless, but fun nonetheless.

I'd give up resolution, viewfinder, any type of raw, photo capabilities. In my book the perfect camera would 14+ stops of real dynamic range, solid 4k up to 120fps, good IBIS, autofocus, ND filters... The only things that hits really close to all of that is the Sony FX6, but it's a bit out of what I can afford. Thinking of picking up a used FS7 one of these days as the prices come down

Honestly something like this would probably do you fine: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/842086-REG/Magnus_VT_4000_VT_4000_Tripod_System.html

Yeah this is really accurate. People use the term "filmic" to describe something wide in variance. Are we talking about 1950s film, 1970s, slide photography, modern 35mm stock etc etc. I'm actually not a huge fan of the crazy 16mm filmic look that's popular right now, nor the 1970s look. I don't mind most modern 35mm stocks (Kodak 8323 and such) a whole lot, but kind of prefer a more modern clean grade overall.

Here are just a few of the projects I've created recently

This is a no budget show we produced with mainly using the S1 with a little a7C thrown in:

Just a solid camera overall. Better colors IMO than the lumix cameras, good auto focus, good 4k codec etc. The DR is a stop or two less than the S1, but probably similar to the GH5s. A little bit worse in low light than the S1. For me it's kind of like a GH5 with more solid color and auto focus and no need for a speedbooster. Also been using it with a ND filter lens adapter, so been digging that too. Mainly been living with a Sigma 18-35 on it or a Canon L 70-200. Technically I should aways go for the S1 because of the better DR and low light, but I keep finding myself go for the R7 because of the user experience

Doing tons of work with our two GH5s and an S1 still. With our current color pipeline in post, they hold up very well. I even through in a G85 every once and a while when needed and it holds up great in certain situations. We also bought a Canon R7 this last year to do a long distance doc when we just needed another body. Honestly I would trade out all my cameras for more versions of that if I could, it's a really solid system for the price. When needed we through in some gorpo and iphone footage for specific things.

Totally depends on your workflow. If you are shooting log and want the heavy grading workflow, in most cases 10bit is a must. If you are using a rec709 profile in camera and don't care a whole lot, then in most cases 8bit is fine. To me 10bit is simply an intermediate codec that gets us to an eventual 8bit final output, like log to rec709.

It's different lavs each time, just the stock lavs that come with the kits. Same kind of problem each time though

Gotcha. I'm using the stock lav that came included with the packs. Yeah it's the timecode kit.

Hi all, I'm needing some expert audio advice. Just for reference, I've been doing documentary and reality shoots for over 10 years now, so am fairly familiar with wireless mics and such. Although I'd have to say, in all my years of work in this industry, I've never run into a problem like this and it's baffling me. I recently had to put together some new kit for a doc shoot, but was on a bit of a tight budget. I picked up a Tentacle Track E since I could record internally and monitor via bluetooth on my phone. I was hoping to test it for larger film workflows on reality shoots where we run into RF interference all the time. When testing, I ran into this crazy electrical interference noise that seemed to be coming from the mic port. I figured it was a faulty unit and returned it. I ended up picking up a Rode wireless go kit, since I was just doing close interviews and had had good success with it in the past. Again, I had this similar electrical interference kind of sound in the background, although it was quite a bit quieter. I figured it was something weird with the Rodes, so I returned it and picked up a set of Deity BP-TRXs. I was really excited to try these, as you can record to and SD card internally while monitoring through the 2.4ghz connection to the receiver. You can even start and stop recording from the receiver, and change settings on the transmitter from the receiver. Well after using it in a couple of shoots, I really love the workflow! The problem is, I'm still getting that same electrical interference kind of sound. I can't figure out what's going on. I have tested it in a variety of conditions, States, phones turned off etc and can't figure it out. I've never come across a sound like this before other than maybe a loose wire or something. Although I don't have a lot of experience with 2.4ghz systems. It's just really weird that I've had similar issues with several different units recently. Any ideas? I'm attaching a sample file for reference. https://www.dropbox.com/s/b6lu5bgm11y9tq5/Deity Sample.m4a?dl=0 Oh and also, if I turn off the receiver and record internally on the transmitter, the sound goes away. But if I keep the receiver on and record internally on the transmitter, the sound is still there.

I haven't tried it yet, really want to though. I almost used a pocket 6k last year for a project, but didn't end up getting it to fit on my steady cam rig, had to bail and use a gh5 at the last minute. Really want to test b-raw though at some point, although I've heard it's really not the same as raw

I feel like for most projects the 150mb/sec on the S1 is about the biggest I'd comfortably go. I never feel like I don't have enough data to work with in that codec outside of raw, but it is big enough to really eat through some hard drives. I'm still editing off of small SSDs, doing all our long term storage on cheap 8 or 12tb HDDs. I really don't find myself needing more data compression wise on most cameras, but I do always use an external monitor with my color science LUT on it, so I'm getting pretty close to the final image in camera exposure and WB wise. I would love to shoot raw just from my experience with photography, but the file sizes make it not an option outside of Red r3d. I'd have to say, I've been shooting with a lot of cameras over the years on a verity of projects including a lot of high end cinema cameras. I am really really impressed with the image out of the S1 and the a7Siii. I've been shooting with them both recently and they are really gold mojo wise. Couldn't ask for much more unless I'm going for the specific Red or Arri look. Which overall doesn't matter too much because few people even know what that means outside of a small niche of cinematographers.

Yeah totally. It's just a tool, and like any tool, you have to learn how to use it, what it does, and more importantly what it doesn't do.

Andrew I think some of this is right, but it really depends on what kind of films you are doing and what kind of workflow you use. I shoot documentary films and for me most of these features if used properly are a Godsend. You are right though, the way most people use them they might as well be a potato. For me, I have a magic color science LUT I use for most of my projects. I load it up in my monitor and shoot 10 bit log on my S1. When I get to post, I drop the same LUT on and do some minor adjustments, pretty easy. This is a look I couldn't get in camera no matter how hard I tried. Again, 10 bit is necessary for this workflow as 8 bit falls apart in log on the s1. But if you are shooting casual films with a baked in profile, then 8 bit should work fine. Just depends on what look you prefer. I do a lot of tripod and steady cam work where IBIS isn't' necessary. But for handheld work, I just can't get over how useful it is sometimes. I can be in the middle of a 10 minute take where my arms are giving out. In the old days my footage would start to get really shaky, but these days I can depend on the IBIS to cover for me. For me it isn't that IBIS is a bad tool, it's just been a problem of people trying to replace traditional tools with it. IF instead of replacing traditional tools, people use it alongside traditional tools, then it becomes magical. Auto focus is another tool that all depends on how you use it. If you take the time to learn it properly and use it correctly, it is immensely useful. Knowing how to setup smooth subject tracking, manually stop it when needed, and tell it how hard to stick to a subject can produce amazing results. But same as the IBIS thing, it has to be used properly along side of traditional tools, knowing when to use it and when to let it rest, and putting the time into learning how to use it properly. I guess all that to say that all of of these tools are amazing in and of themselves if used at their full potential. But you are right, most people don't use them properly and they just become an excuse for laziness.

I went to an S1 from my GH5s, actually I still use both. The S1 has been amazing image and low light wise, although the slow motion is a bit aggravating. The GH5 could do really good down sampled HD, meaning the 1080p60 was really good. The S1 doesn't do HD very well, so you are kind of stuck with the cropped 4k60, which isn't as bad as I thought it would be, just have to be selective with what lenses I use. Other than that I don't have any complaints, the image is a huge step up from the GH5 for sure!