Mark Romero 2

Maybe I am confused again 🤔 I could have sworn I read / heard somewhere that the R6 has a SIGNIFICANT crop when shooting 4K 60p (like 1.5X or something). But the chart posted a few posts up says you get 94% of the sensor width. Can anyone confirm??? And does anyone have any insight on the dynamic range (and low light performance) of the CLOG in the R6 compared to the VLOG of the Panasonic S1? Thanks in advance, and apologies if i am asking questions with obvious answers. 🙏

Sure, but your country actually DID SOMETHING at the start of the outbreak, basically nipping it in the bud. By the third week of April 2020, the number of daily new cases in New Zealand was in the single digits. So hats off to the good people of New Zealand, whether it was government imposed restrictions at the outset, or just vigilance and diligence by the common people, or whether they have discovered that a passion for beer and rugby makes a perfect vaccine.

I shoot in vlog if it is bright and contrasty. Otherwise I use 709-like. I usually turn sharpness, saturation and contrast down. In resolve if using vlog I generally use fashion low contrast LUT or use a cst to go in to arri log c / arri gamma and from there in to rec 709 via Arri log to rec 709 lut. PLEASE BE WARNED: I am NOT a master grader by any stretch of the imagination and 99% of the time I am just trying to "clean things up" when having to deal with mixed lighting temperatures and tints.

Unfortunately, on S5 and S1 (and I assume S1R), anything above 50p / 60p is shot in S&Q mode so you get lower bitrate and avchd. Only the S1H has the ability to record in higher bitrates when shooting above 50p / 60p. One of the things that kills me is that while Sony has an S&Q mode with low bitrates similar to the S5 / S1, it also has higher bitrates (100Mbps) for 1080p 120fps. I haven't compared the two side by side (some people say it looks like 720p upscaled to 1080p on the Sony cameras). But still, can't see why one can't get at least 100Mbps for 1080p 120fps. There's a couple of ways to do it, but you might have to dig around to set it up correctly. You have the focus mode switch on the back (AF-S, AF-C, MF), and I think if you set the switch to MF and press the AF On button (the button in the center of the switch), it will go in to magnify. Now, you have your choice of picture-in-picture magnify, or magnify the full screen. If you are using an electronic lens (With AF???) then you should have AF+MF. You CAN punch in by rotating the focus ring, but you have to do it while pressing the AF-On (either using a dedicated button for AF-On or pressing the shutter halfway down - if you still have af tied to the shutter). It is a little bit tricky since the shutter button can be tripped pretty easily. If I am shooting waist level and using the lcd screen then I am using back-button focusing, and I guess if I were looking through the EVF I would probably tie the halfway-shutter to activating AF. I don't know if you are using a manual focus lens with electronic contacts (like a Laowa or Voightlander??? Do they have electronic contacts???) and do the same AF+MF and rotate the focus ring and press the AF button whether they will punch in or not.

And the ability to punch in while recording.

Well... that kind of sucks.

Yikes... I think I could deal with the 6 to 8 hour wedding, but I would tell them to bring me their SD cards and they can edit themselves.

Also, I thought I read that DCI 4K just crops in from the top and bottom??? (As opposed to expanding the horizontal field of view.) Can anyone confirm?

I don't know if I would PERSONALLY bother with these lenses if I shot on Sony... at least at those prices. I wish Sigma all the best, and I am sure that SOME people will find that these lenses hit the spot for them, but... For Sony E-Mount, there's already the Sigma 24-70 f/2.8 at around $1,200 and the Tamron 28-75 f/2.8 at around $800. Sure, they are f/2.8 instead of f/2, but Sigma lenses have a tradition of having lower T Stops than their f stop value, so you might not get much of an advantage in terms of light captured. Plus there are a plethora of other lenses (of varying quality) by the Chinese / Korean manufacturers to compete with at significantly lower prices / faster apertures. And then there are all the Sony native lenses. And THEN there is the MC-11 (which actually works quite well on Sony Gen III and above cameras) and all that EF glass. And THEN there is the new Sony LA-EA 5 adapter at at $250 and all that A Mount glass out there. And then, after all that, there are all the Minolta MD's, Canon FD's, Super Takamur's, Helios, Jena's, etc...

I think that's a good choice.

Firstly, I think if you go the Sony route, the best cameras for your needs would be either the a6400 or the a6600. Don't quote me on this, but I think that one (or both) of them have no record limits in 4K, are better at resisting overheating, and have a larger battery. Sony LCD screens tend to get dim when recording in 4K to help reduce overheating. I am not sure if this dimming has been reduced / eliminated with the a6400 or the a6600. The older cameras (a6300, a6500) would overheat and have a very dim (and highly reflective) screen. But hey, what they lacked in terms of monitoring, they made up for in being a great mirror 😬 a6000 and a6100 are 1080p only (as far as I can remember). If one does experience overheating, it has been claimed by others that using either a battery grip or a dummy battery will help reduce overheating. The main problem I think you might run in to with the a6X00 bodies is what lens you are going to get. The 16-55 f/2.8 G is a great lens but it costs $1,300 🤬 The kit lens is horrible (16-50 f/3.5-5.6 pz). Maybe it is usable at f/8, but there are so many sample variations you might have to buy four and return three of them before you can find one that works well at f/8. The other options are the 18-135 f/3.5 - 5.6, and the older 18-105 f/4 which some people like because of the power zoom feature. Don't know if it is parfocal nor do I know if it breathes heavily. I would imagine if it is a PowerZoom lens that it would be parfocal, but then again... Sony. If you want a prime, the 50mm f/1.8 OSS (the aps-c version, not the full frame version) is quite good. But it comes to 75mm full-frame equivalent, which is kind of an odd focal length. I don't know how the 30mm f/1.8 OSS and the 35mm f/3.5 macro do. I think they are pretty good though. Avoid the older 20mm f/2.8 and the 16mm f/2.8 as they aren't designed to work with the newer autofocus system, so they are slow to focus and will just leave you crying. And finally, you might want to check out this video when you have a moment just so you get some perspective of what Panasonic AF is like compared to Sony AF. Both the a6400 and the a6600 should have equal AF performance to the a7 III used in this demonstration. Might even have BETTER AF since I think the a6600 has improved tracking over the a7 III (don't quote me on that). Go to the 9:15 mark to watch the Autofocus tests, the comparisons with Sony are near the end of the autofocus testing section.

Out of curiosity (and totally off topic), I wonder what couples EXPECT to pay in your area? Been a LLLOOONNNGGGG time since I last shot a wedding (that was stills on film, just to give some perspective of what "long time" means).

Many of the Sony a6X00 cameras have LOG profiles, but they are 8-bit 4:2:0, not 10-bit 4:2:2 profiles. They are somewhat compressed a bit at 100Mbps as well. I think that only the least expensive a6X00 cameras (the a6000 and the a6100) don't have LOG / 4K. Everything from the a6300 on up should have 4K and 8-bit LOG. There is no problem using FF emount lenses on the crop sensor Sony cameras. Sony calls their full frame lenses "FE" lenses, and calls their aps-c lenses "E" lenses, but you can mount the FE lenses (the full frame lenses) on the crop sensor cameras and they function perfectly. One Thing To Note (if you aren't familiar with Sony cameras): Sony has a line of A-Mount cameras and A-Mount lenses, and they are NOT compatible with the current lineup of e-mount cameras without an adapter. Also, the adapters that sony has to convert their legacy A-Mount lenses to E-Mount are not great, which is a shame because Sony has some nice legacy A-Mount lenses that are relatively inexpensive compared to their Nikon or Canon counterparts. So avoid A-Mount lenses unless you WANT to deal with adapters and poorer AF performance 😞 You might come across Sony lenses with an abbreviated name that contains SEL or contains SAL. The SEL lenses work on e-mount cameras, while the SAL lenses work on A-Mount cameras. As for dynamic range, in addition to the 8-bit slog profiles, there are also the various Cine gammas (cine 1, 2, 3, and 4) which offer more dynamic range than the standard profiles (by compressing the highlights primarily), can be shot at lower ISOs (like ISO 100 or 200), and tend to have cleaner shadows. However, SLOG 2 seems to have about a stop or so more dynamic range than the Cine gammas. The a6400 and a6600 also have HLG profiles but I haven't worked with them on Sony cameras. Gerald undone did a comparison somwhere between HLG, SLOG and Cine 2 (I think). Final thoughts: Since @MrSMW uses a modified version of the natural profile on his Panasonic cameras, it might be a good idea to use the Leeming LUTs which seem to provide very good "neutral" skin tones. I think there are LUTs for Cine gammas, HLG and SlOG in the LUT Package for Sony cameras. Ok, one more final thought: Some people say they can avoid a lot of the mess of using slog profiles by either 1) turn saturation all the way up (Dunna did it) or by changing the color mode to ITU 709 (Caleb dslr video shooter). I haven't tried either. Yeah, I agree with you on that. I was going to get an X-T3 and say goodbye to sony, but I use the memory slots for stills on my a6500 all the time, and the lack of memory slots on the X-T3 was a deal breaker for me. On the other hand, since new Sony APS-C cameras generally start at $1,400 and then the Sony 16-55 f/2.8 also costs $1,400, one might just keep their fingers crossed that Sony releases an a7 IV with 10-bit 4:2:2 150Mbps at around $2,000 and pair that with the Tamron 28-75 f/2.8 instead.

Regarding Sony colors (and colors for ALL cameras): The colors coming out of my Sony a6500 are HIGHLY dependent on the lens I put in front of it. Same thing with my Panasonic S1. Different colors depending on whether I put my Canon 16-35 f/4 L, or my Panasonic 24-105 f/4, or my Minolta MD 50mm f/2.

I think that @omega1978 suggestion of an a6400 might be a good one. I have an a6500 - which has an older version of the AF system found in the newer a6400 - and it keeps up with people skateboarding around, so I don't think it would have much of a problem with a bride and groom walking down an aisle. do you still have an X-T3 lying around somewhere???

Is manual focus an option at all for this situation? Because the S-Series of cameras have pretty much the best features for manual focus. they have linear focus and you can customize the amount of focus throw. They also have the AF+MF, so you can set the camera in AF-S and then just rotate the focus ring to override in to manual focus. Unfortunately though, still can't punch in while recording.

Well... did you try instead to focus on the BACKGROUND??? Maybe that way it would lock focus on you by mistake ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Canon EF lenses on an MC-21 Adapter on Panasonic S-series cameras only provide AF-S. There is NO AF-C available using EF lenses on the MC-21, neither when shooting video nor when shooting stills. Maybe if / when metabones comes out with an EF-L mount adapter there will be AF-C available on Panasonic S-series cameras. I only have one EF lens and that is the 16-35 f/4 and it seems to work fine when using AF-S (haven't tried it with the new Ver 1.6 firmware though). Even when shooting video in V-LOG at 24fps (where the Panasonic S1 struggles the most) the AF-S is fine. However, I normally shoot large, stationary objects, since I shoot real estate / architecture / travel. Houses and mountains don't move too quickly 🙂 As a side note, most Canon and Sigma EF-S glass will automatically set the camera to crop mode, and you can't change back to FF mode. I don't have any EF-S glass but I heard that some lenses might not, such as the Tamron 12-24 will let you shoot in FF mode. Apparently at around 16mm that Tamron 12-24mm lens will cover the full area of the FF sensor. Hearsay: I've read on other forums from people who own both an a7 III and an S1-series of cameras that EF glass performs a lot better on their Sony cameras than on their panasonic cameras. I've actually heard people say that their EF glass performs better on their Sony a7 III than on their Canon 5D III. Again, just hearsay, so don't quote me on this. Bottom line: as @MrSMW noted above, If AF is really important to you using Canon EF lenses, then go with the Sony. Just one last bit of food for thought though... While I realize and can see your reasoning for not wanting to buy L Mount glass, the Panasonic lenses are truly capable video lenses. Each lens varies, but most of them offer minimal focus breathing, are parfocal, have the ability to set the focus ring to linear, and allow you to customize the focus throw from about 90-degrees to around 270-degrees (as best as I can remember). They also have beautiful rendering, minimal flare, minimal ghosting, minimal CA, minimal LOCA. They were designed for hybrid shooters, while I think most Canon EF glass was designed for photographers.

Thanks for sharing your experience. I really appreciate it. I actually own the panasonic 24-105 f/4, and while it isn't particularly sexy, it is a pretty darn good lens. I had been looking at maybe selling it and getting the FIRST version of the Canon EF 24-105 and then using the leftover money (if any) to maybe buy another lens (like EF 40mm f/2.8 or EF 85mm f/1.8), but it sounds like just keeping the Panasonic 24-105 f/4 might just be the best thing. The main problem with the Panasonic 24-105 f/4 is that it is too pedestrian to LOVE, and too competent to HATE.

For S5 (and S1-series owners), the new firmware update is out. Ver 2.0 for S5 owners, Ver. 2.2 for S1H owners, and version 1.6 for us owners of the S1 and S1R cameras. https://av.jpn.support.panasonic.com/support/global/cs/dsc/download/index4.html

How do you like the Canon EF 24-105mm F4 on the S5? Are you using the first version or the II version?

80's videos are the gateway drug to speedballs.

Maybe a typo? Probably meant to write f/1.4 minstead of f/1.8 I thin.

The other, other option is to just keep the a6500, use the Open Memories no record limit tweak, shoot in Cine 4 (8 bit) and try to match Cine D on the S1.

Yes, same price with half the pleasure...