kye

This thread started with a question - buy a Varicam or use your BMMCC. @PannySVHS - that one is easy... just use your BMMCC. Then you elaborate about all the lovely equipment you have that sits unused, which (I think) negates the original question, and proposes a new one. By saying you own lots of gear, don't use it, and still want more, you're saying that you attribute some value to simply owning equipment, even if you don't use it. This means you are also a collector, rather than exclusively a cinematographer. This is a very different mindset, and it's a different kind of value. While one person thinks that owning every piece of tableware from some brand is a worthwhile goal, the next person thinks of it as tacky and a waste of time and money. The value is in the eye of the beholder and only you can answer the Varicam question for yourself. Your question mixes the two however. It seems you derive value from buying equipment that performs well, even if you don't use it, so that's also something for you to evaluate. In terms of my thoughts about camera stuff: Almost any camera can look great, but the better the camera and the better the cinematographer, the easier it is to get it looking great The worse the camera the less latitude it will give you in the grade... bad cameras won't have enough latitude in the image to even point them at anything difficult, good cameras will have enough latitude to point them at difficult scenes or to point them at normal scenes and have a bit of wiggle room, and great cameras give you lots of room to move even in difficult situations @TomTheDP was kind enough to share some S1 files with me and I felt like they had more latitude than the GH5 files, but ultimately they felt the same nearing their limits, and in shots that were quite underexposed I felt like I was arguing with strange colour casts and noise and compression problems in the footage in the same way as I would with underexposed GH5 footage, so the flavour is the same. The S1 and GH5 files I've graded feel awkward and deformed in comparison to grading RAW or Prores from the OG BMPCC or BMMCC, which respond exactly the way you'd expect them to. It's hard to explain but it feels like you've got some setting horribly wrong in Resolve when you work with GH5 or S1 files by comparison. I haven't dealt with BM footage shot as poorly as the GH5/S1 footage I've worked with, but even when both brands are shot well, the BM ones feel fundamentally better TLDR; understand what you're actually trying to achieve, then work out the best way to get there.

"What's the point of driving that fast if we were going in the wrong fucking direction" - my vague recollection of a quote from the Gumball 3000 episode of Jackass when the team realise their short-cut is actually a dead end and that driving fast isn't the most important factor. Like most years, I'm doing a personal retrospective of the year, and would encourage others to do so as well. The purpose of this exercise is to get past the stories that we tell ourselves (white lies, if you will) and get to the truth of things, and learn and grow from it. We all choose to focus on certain things and forget other things, always in our own favour, but that doesn't lead to facing up to our own shortcomings and overcoming them, that's just a form of denial. It's normal, but as sentient beings, we can do better. To refer back to the quote above, it's a way of realising we're driving in the wrong direction. Rich people track and manage their wealth, Fit people track and manage their fitness, why not put a small amount of effort into reflecting on our lives? It might be tempting to just say "2021 was fucked because of COVID" and just wanting to forget the whole thing. I would suggest that makes it more important to reflect because we need all the help we can get in such situations, and it's also more valuable because when any COVID-like-substance hits the fan it reveals deeper things about us that wouldn't normally come to the surface, so there's more to learn than ever. I enjoy detail and analysis, so get into it pretty deep, but it doesn't have to be. It just requires that you are real with yourself. I suggest contemplating: What you spent your time on (it's our most valuable resource - look through your calendar if you keep one to get to the truth) What you spent your money on (review credit card purchases, eBay / Amazon / etc purchase history, etc) Where you got your money from and how your finances were tracking (bank statements, value of investments and assets) What you spent your energy on (review emails, journals, blogs, vlogs, etc for the high and low-points, frustrations, etc) What goals you have and what worked to get you closer to them and what didn't work I also divide things into the following categories, which might overlap but are useful prompts: Career Business Finances Wealth Assets Family Friends Relationships (both with others and yourself) Health (physical, emotional, mental) Fitness Fun and Toys (I like toys! I suspect most of us here are in the same boat with this one!) Lifestyle You can list any specific projects or goals separately, but I'd encourage you not to, as the goal is to have the nicest life and if something doesn't align with one/several of the above then why are you doing it? I suggest writing things down, and doing it in two phases. The first is gathering the info - what actually happened? This is how we cut through some of the lies we tell ourselves and get closer to the truth. Then second, review all the notes and contemplate what they mean. Once you collate all the facts it's hard to hide if you're spending too much or too little on some things, and where you actually get your money / energy / inspiration / success from. If you run a business a good exercise is to see which clients generated the most income and which were the biggest PITA, you might find that there are clients that are huge pains but don't generate much income - firing them is an easy life upgrade! Anyone else reflecting back?

The market seems to be responding to the ever-increasing prices of vintage gear online, which is great IMHO. Another example is modern lenses with a retro look: It makes sense that the same would happen in the anamorphic space. Fantastic stuff!

It might be worth considering the economics of investing in this. For example, if you have more work than capacity then time is money and it's worth calculating the value of your time and what time savings might be gained by buying a more expensive card, for example if you didn't have to render proxies. Also, editing and post are creative activities and if having a slower performance annoys you then your results will be less than they could be if you weren't annoyed. Just some things to consider.

Depending on how the lenses are loose, hot glue might help? If you're just gluing a brace to the outside of the lens, obviously on two parts that don't rotate against each other, then a decent amount of surface area would get a good hold and should peel right off without leaving a trace I'd imagine? Obviously, do a test if you're going to try that, but if it takes a lens that wasn't usable and gives it new life then why not. Despite our love of old glass, it's useless if it can't be making images, so have at it I'd say. I looked up the release date, but it seems I misread it. The BMCC was 2012, and the BMPCC was 2013.

Interesting. I've heard people say they compared images and they were basically the same, so assuming that's true then similar/same is good enough unless someone is planning on taking theirs apart and re-programming or re-using the chip in a different circuit - otherwise knowing the exact model number really doesn't matter 🙂 Great chip though. Pity there isn't a camera with the 2022 version of the chip. Considering how good it was at the time it would be spectacular with a decade of further development added to it.

I suggest taking a total-system perspective rather than the assumption you'll keep your lenses. Work out what you could sell them for, then price up options from all manufacturers buying the complete kit second-hand. Canon has a lot of pros going for it, but they cripple their video functions quite severely (to get you to buy a cinema camera) so they're potentially not the best manufacturer for your needs.

The GH5's 1080p codecs are one of it's best features I think - 200Mbps, ALL-I, 422, 10-bit, downsampled. Available in 24/25 and 50/60p too, all with HLG. I agree about the colour science though, unfortunately, it's not the best. Every Panasonic camera since the GH5 has had a small but notable improvement to the colour science though, so I'm hoping the GH6 will be the best colour science yet, which would be great. If the GH6 had dual-ISO and great colour science it would fix two of the biggest weaknesses of the GH5, for me at least, and I think those are both quite likely. But, like all things, time will tell 🙂

Merry Christmas and welcome back! I am all for content of making the most of cameras around the $2000 mark, and of lenses and all the other fun things that a camera needs to work well and create great images. Great to hear you've managed to find the spark again 🙂

I think the 2012 reference might be to the sensor, which IIRC is the same as the OG BMPCC, which was announced/released in 2012. Great stuff about the 18-90, although it's a pretty darn long lens with the crop factor! I've got a Tokina RMC 28-70 3.5-4.5 on the way which will fit my m42 speed booster, making it about as wide, but it's mainly for my GX85. I did a deep dive on walk-around vintage zooms but found that coverage at the wide end is the challenge and that nothing really hit the mark for me and how I shoot. At least, not enough to justify spending the $1000 or so I'd need to buy a Canon or Angenieux or whatever else cine zoom in good enough condition that it would hold its value.

I think we're mixing a bunch of things together here. I don't question that cell phones have had a huge impact on the camera industry, that much is clear with the "falling off a cliff" charts of camera sales. I also realise that your comment was probably made relatively casually, and maybe I took it a little too literally, which may not be the spirit with which it was intended, but just to clarify, the comment I was speaking to was: The two key elements of this that I took here were "all of our jobs". The articles you linked to featured two significant points. The first was that there was a huge decline in sales, and the second was that these companies / products / industry segments were enormously profitable. The math of this is that profit is money earned from sales that isn't spent on jobs. Also, being high-technology, the amount of money spent on sophisticated equipment is huge in comparison to the amount spent on wages of workers. The entire concept of the production line is based on the idea that the machines do the work and the people do the things around the machines. I see the jobs that we're talking about falling into a number of categories: those that might increase in demand, those that stay steady, and those that are likely to decline. Jobs that will decline are pretty straight forwards and obvious, being people who work on the production line of all the different products now effectively merged, R&D across the many companies now reduced to the main manufacturers, designers for all the different products, and the associated corporate jobs that sit in every company. Jobs that will likely not decline as they have nothing to do with the price of a camera but are related to the number of productions include a vast array of things like producers, directors, production design, grip, sound, editing and post. I have grouped the "stays the same" and "increased demand" together because I think it's very difficult to understand the impact of wider trends. You also linked to an article showing that the going rate for wedding videographer is much reduced. I am happy to admit that a reduced total cost for services will translate to less people being able to make a living (therefore losing jobs), however it won't be proportional as the reduced equipment costs will have been passed on to the customer, along with the reduced time for editing and post production, etc. I don't know where you're based, maybe the US or UK, but globally the market for something like wedding videography is likely to be exploding. From the wikipedia page on Middle Class: I realise you said "all of our jobs", and I'd acknowledge that not many of us are doing projects in the Punjab or Shaanxi, so maybe that point is besides your original comment, but it does speak to the wider theme of the impact of cell phones on the entire job market for professional moving image creation. My point about cell phones driving demand for video is probably not easily quantifiable, but I would suggest that it is also undeniable. Back in the days when equipment was expensive and not accessible by the average consumer, the only way that person would ever see themselves on video was either via a handycam or if they managed to do something newsworthy and got themselves on TV. I had access to a video camera for intermittent periods from about 1986 onwards, and the idea of recording myself was completely foreign - there was no expectation that I should appear on video. Now, the consumption of media that features normal people has exploded. There are more TV stations and movie production companies than ever, for sure (boosting demand for all the production-related jobs, not the camera-production ones) but the explosion in content has been of people pointing cameras at people who aren't famous or trying to be famous. The idea that I would film myself doing something now isn't so alien, because it's normalised. Perhaps the biggest element in this whole equation, I think, is that of change. Every period of upheaval is both a crisis and an opportunity - but only for people who either weren't attached to the old ways of doing things or who can change to adapt to the new opportunities. The entire domestic drone market is one such opportunity, just to name one. Change is hard, though. Really hard. Lots of people don't make it, kind of hard. I think this is where the statements of impending doom comes from, like the kind I smelled in your "taking all of our jobs" comment. Maybe it wasn't intended to be taken as literal, and maybe you feel that I'm picking on you (which I'm not, but I am posting this to try and make a point, which is that one-sided statements like this don't really help anyone and don't add to a conversation, whereas nuanced comments do) but I think it's obviously false. We have at least one person on these forums who won't be unemployed as they do sound, which no amount of DR can substitute for getting a boom mic close to someones mouth or telling the AC that the generator needs to be further away from the set. There are others here too where it's really obvious that no amount of camera tech will impact them. Am I saying change is good? No. Am I saying change is bad? No. What I am saying though, is that regardless of if your statement is true or not (taken literally it's not and taken figuratively it probably still isn't) it's not useful. Change is hard and people who don't want to change, can't afford to change, or don't have the ability to change (for whatever reasons, of which there are a great many very valid reasons out there) will be having a very very bad time. If this is you then I would encourage you to reach out for help, and rather than phrasing your pain as "we're all screwed", instead rephrase is as a request for support or comradeship. If this isn't you, then think about the impact your comment has on other people. This is, sadly, a matter of life and death for some people, and think about how you feel about your contributions to this, very grave topic. So yeah, that's my piece, happy to go on talking about these mythical 30 stops of DR phones that you're dreaming about, but please, rather than adding to the dumbing down and negative spiralling nature of internet discourse, I'd encourage you to go the other way.

I absolutely completely disagree with this, with one caveat. Firstly, to provide some context, I have a background in computing and am very optimistic about how good the tech will become, however, I don't think it will get that good that quickly. The caveat is that technology will gradually nibble away at the bottom-end of the market. In this case, cell phones will gradually have better and better image quality and will more and more replace having a "better" camera. Essentially, this just means that it's cheaper to get the same image quality. But, since when did having a cheaper camera "take jobs"? Cameras are spectacularly better than they have ever been, but there are probably more people making their living as professionals who contribute to video creation than ever before, and this is even if you don't count social media influencers and you tubers. I'm talking about more and more people doing corporate, weddings, events, advertising / marketing / PR, etc. In fact, the improvement in the screen of the cell phone has probably created more jobs than the camera has killed because the total time watching video content for the average person is through the roof because of mobile. Everyone knows that the best camera in the hands of the worst operator looks awful, and that doesn't even account for lighting, set dressing, hair, makeup, etc... let alone writing, story, acting, etc.

Look great! I think the lighting and colour is particularly good. In fact, it doesn't look like video at all, which is something that very few people are able to do these days, even if they're trying to make something cinematic.

Technology really is wonderful, I'd just rather they use it for better pixels rather than having so many of them. However, I'll bet that they'll take the doubling of light gathering and just use it to deliver more pixels of the same quality we have them at now.

I don't know why I read the headlines any more. This isn't the first time I've misinterpreted one that turned out to include a completely false statement of fact. Maybe somewhere in the back of my mind I thought technical discussions on a forum such as this would have the slightest modicum of filtration from the "post truth" reality the rest of the world now seems to live in. I guess not! *sigh*

I had a closer look at the picture, and yeah, it's not what I thought. Funnily enough, I thought "dual layer" meant two layers. No. Those words in the tweet are complete bullshit. There is already two (or more) layers, and they're making it three (or more), but it's still a single sensor. They've been gradually taking things that were taking up real estate on the front of the sensor (and therefore blocking light) and putting them behind the photo site for years. This is an incremental upgrade that some numpty decided was the ultimate breakthrough and somehow none of the previous ones mattered or count in this "FIRST DUAL LAYER" spasm they posted. I thought the implication that 'one became two' implied a second photodiode under the first, presumably with the ability to be operated independently. Sadly, no.

I disagree - it will benefit all camera types. This is because the second layer is in the same area of the sensor, and could be used to capture at a different amount of gain, which could then be used to extend the dynamic range of every pixel. Imagine a Sony sensor where it could have identical performance but use a second layer to extend DR by many stops...

My GH5 says....

As magnifying glasses, camera phones are very useful, yes..

Well, one thing is for sure - the eye is absolutely not 576Mp!

Haha, I drop into the S5 thread on page 38 and find someone talking about Panasonic AF with adapted lenses... it certainly sounded like complaining 🙂 We should have a swear jar for when people start sentences with "If X made a camera with ...... " All I think when someone says that is why stop there? If you're going to make statements completely disconnected with reality then you may as well say "If Apple made a camera that supported apps, but had a FF sensor and Alexa DR and Colour Science and Phantom frame rates and it was the size of a GoPro and have it pair with the iPhone for social media and streaming and cost $12, I'd definitely buy it". 😆😆😆

1080p EVF? It would give you another point of contact too, so steadier shots and camera movement. If you didn't want the Canon Cripple Hammer or the Sony Tax then just give up - if you want something done right then do it yourself.

Some nice lenses in there... As a ~100% video shooter, and one who is aspiring to make images that look like cinema and not at all like professional spec-driven videographers, I find that I'm narrowing in more and more on lenses that are high resolution but not sharp. I'm still trying to understand what it is and how to get it, but I'm gradually making progress. My latest purchase is a Tokina RMC 28-70 f3.5-4.5 M42 to mate with my GX85 and m42 SB. That will make it a 44-109mm equivalent. I'm planning to use it as an experimental walk-around zoom, and am hoping for a softer rendition with large complex flares. I've found that my GF3 is too soft with any lens except the 12-35/2.8, the GX85 is too sharp (even on 1080p timelines) unless it's got a lens with some softening on it, and the GH5 in 200Mbps 1080p ALL-I mode is pretty darn neutral and the files are strong enough to grade however you like them. I also have a number of vintage 50mm lenses, and have more in transit, so am planning on a head-to-head with them too. Currently my Helios 58mm F2 copies are the clear winners, with their soft and almost painterly rendering. My interest in the 28-70 is getting something with a similar rendering.

I'm not familiar with either of these, but to me it's about the control wheel. Everything else is secondary.