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This video (posted previously) is really the only thing I've shot with the Micro that is edited nicely and has been cleared for general distribution by the boss... As lovely as these cameras are (BMMCC and OG BMPCC) they're too finicky / slow for most of what I do, which is why I've gotten my GX85 and am now playing with that. For reference, I shot a little video of my wife and I riding down to the beach and looking at the sunset, similar to this video, but many shots were filmed while we were riding and my main concern was not falling off while filming and riding one-handed through patches of sand while the pedal-assist on the e-bike was rather abruptly turning its helping on and off. Situations like that aren't really the use-cases for a cinema camera!

That's my current process, but I was thinking about switching. I've started shooting 1080p ALL-I on my GH5 so they edit beautifully on my laptop, but the file sizes are actually larger so are definitely still prohibitive, especially as I'm working on multiple projects at once, plus the Mac Mini I'd get would be the M1 which should be able to handle the IPB stuff I've been shooting for years now. If you have machines that can edit the native files then getting away from managing a proxy workflow, and not rendering proxies either, would be great. With Resolve I approach editing in a much more integrated way, rather than the sequential approach of old. For example, here's a few scenarios that I can't do while editing with proxies: if I'm selecting clips then I want to know if I missed focus on one I might also want to know if a clip can be stabilised sufficiently to rescue it or maybe I want to know if it can be stabilised over a particularly big bump, because if so then I'll include the shot for longer in the edit, which means I change the pacing of the edit and maybe include or drop other shots, so that effect would ripple through the edit (if you'll pardon the pun!) Often people think of editing as a low-resolution activity and then colour grading as a higher resolution activity, but to my work, where often a lot of it is scenic and often a lot of it is being filmed under relatively difficult situations, the visual of the shot may well be borderline and knowing that impacts the creative process. The alternative is just to have the Resolve database and footage on an enormous SSD, but it would cost many thousands of dollars to store all my active footage on SSDs, whereas for almost the same funds I could probably get a Mac Mini and a RAID controller to work with my spinning disks which would be fast enough with an SSD cache. The bottleneck, of course, would be the wifi, which leads to this thread.....

The reason that I ask is that it's not easy to calculate. Here's a summary from https://www.speedguide.net/faq/what-is-the-actual-real-life-speed-of-wireless-374 So in theory, with 802.11n and a fancy router (which I have thanks to my son who is into gaming), you could be getting multiple channels of 150Mbps. However, the challenge comes in video editing that it's not just a straight throughput. For an ALL-I codec, to render the first frame after a cut, this has to happen: your computer has to open the file from the NAS your computer has to read the file type and codec and understand the structure of the clip your computer has to request the part of the file that contains the first frame Then your computer can decode that first frame. For an IPB codec, to render the first frame after a cut, a lot more has to happen: your computer has to open the file from the NAS your computer has to read the file type and codec and understand the structure of the clip your computer has to find the part of the file that contains the nearest keyframe before the target frame your computer has to request the part of the file from the prior keyframe all the way to your target frame Then your computer can decode the keyframe, then all the frames between it and the target frame. Depending on the density of keyframes, the first frame after each edit point might actually require several seconds of video to be transferred, which will obviously cause a big lump of data to get in the way of smooth transferral of the stream. So, basically, not really possible yet. Wired ethernet can be commonly had at Gigabit speeds (1000Mbps), and higher, which suggests that the above might be possible if your files are a smaller percentage of that bandwidth, say, under 300Mbps. But that doesn't help me edit in the lounge while my wife watches TV 😂😂😂 Thanks all.

Huh?

I currently edit video on my MBP laptop, with footage on the internal SSD, in various locations around the house, using the MBP display. When I want to use a larger display I plug it into my UHD panel in my office. To manage projects I copy footage to/from the internal SSD to my media archive spinning drives via USB. I'm contemplating buying a Mac Mini for the office and moving to a multi-computer setup, where each computer can edit by accessing the Resolve project database and all the source footage on a NAS (Network Attached Storage). The challenge would be that the MBP would be accessing the footage, which would be up to 300Mbps Long-GOP, from the NAS over WIFI, and I don't know if that's feasible. Is WIFI (either 2.4GHz or 5GHz) fast enough for editing video like this? Thanks.

First light, and thought I'd go old-school: I've managed to set it up relatively similarly to my GH5, which is awesome. Two questions: Is there any way to set the shutter button to record video instead of take a still while in C mode? I've set the rear dial to be exposure compensation, which only works while not recording - any way around this? Initial impressions are actually pretty awesome. Obviously it's not a GH5, but it still feels very capable, and the IBIS is quite impressive. A couple of 4K frame grabs from the Cosmicar (wide open): and flaring: Obviously I'll have to crop into the image a bit in post, but totally fine for a 1080p timeline (and would be fine for a 4K timeline too - just add a touch of sharpening). ......and then the Helios with Speedbooster: Screen grabs (also wide open): Flaring:

I am actively trying to improve my film-making though courses, books, and other resources. I know others here are also investing in their craft. I thought that a thread to recommend and discuss resources would be useful.. Who can recommend things they've read / seen / done? As many of us are effectively one-person production houses, I'm keen to hear about anything that's helped - pre / prod / post.

Yes, the grading experience is fundamentally different isn't it! It's an odd thing to describe, especially to someone who might have gotten an S1 or equivalent and where that footage is much nicer to grade than other things they've been using. I guess it's pretty hard to describe how a $1K 1080p camera from a decade ago can be one (or two) steps above the latest multi-thousand dollar FF 6K beasts, but it is. I find that if you don't care about the dates on the files on the card, you can have manual lenses and a vND and you just set the camera to the desired frame rate, codec, and shutter speed, and then you don't have to navigate the menus ever - just change the vND for exposure, and aperture and focus and hit record/stop at the right times. It's also worth testing if you prefer focus peaking from the camera or your monitor. You can even use the menu overlays from the camera and the peaking on your monitor, but it will highlight all the overlays as well as your image, but you can get used to that pretty easily.

Thanks, that's useful. The challenge of FF lenses is that the MFT is cropping in so immediately the lenses are at a resolution disadvantage because they're not being used as designed. Then they're aging designs, built to a price, are zooms, and who knows how much degradation might have occurred to specific copies etc. And then we pixel-peep at 4k (or more) resolutions, so it's hardly a fair fight!

Got back from my trip and the GX85 had arrived! (In fact, it was delivered about 45 minutes after I left, but all good). To greet it, all the trendy MFT gear had a welcome party, including: GH5 GF3 OG BMPCC BMMCC 7.5mm F2 12-35mm F2 12.5mm F1.9 14mm F2.5 14-42mm kit zoom (not really trendy, but came as the BMPCCs +1) 15mm F8 (also not really trendy, but came as the BMPCCs +1) 17.5mm F0.95 42.5mm F0.95 Helios 58mm F2 on M42 0.71x Speedbooster An honourable mention that also couldn't attend is the 28mm F2.8 m42 lens I've just ordered as it's still in the UK, but I'm hoping that combined with the M42 SB it will make a great compliment to the Helios. The FD70-210mm F4 got drunk early, fell over and rolled away - lucky it's tough as nails! All audio equipment declined, being too finicky and claiming it didn't want to be seen with any "vintage" equipment. It mumbled something disdainful about poor quality but all I heard was "8-track". So many great combinations here, but the most notable ones are: Standard travel kit: GH5 + 7.5mm + 17.5mm + 42.5mm (FF - 15mm/35mm/85mm) Combined with the 1080p 10-bit 24fps and 60fps modes and the 2x digital zoom function, this setup can work pretty quickly and in almost any environment (two days ago I was shooting wide open in a cave in torchlight) Low-fi pocket setup: GF3 + 14mm (FF - 28mm) The only video mode is "auto everything" and so it features very short shutters (which stabilises wonderfully in post), softer image quality (which looks very cinematic!), nicer colours that it has any right to have, and with AFS it's easy to use and was, at one time, the fastest (mirrorless?) AF available. It's also shooting with a single prime, so comes with all the artistic integrity that that brings. Most anticipated setup: GX85 + 12.5mm + 28mm/SB + 58mm/SB (FF - 28mm/43mm/90mm) Small and not attention-seeking, but a stabilised set of fast vintage primes with nice 4K which can be cropped into in post if required. It's a very appealing thought to be able to look through the viewfinder and be recording gorgeous, dare I say "cinematic" images, but just look like a happy-snapping touristy dorky-dad. I should buy a sling bag to keep the lenses in and to sell the whole tourist thing. Minimalist "nice" setup: GX85 + 7.5mm + 12-35mm (FF - 17mm/26-77mm) Small and not attention-seeking, the 12-35 will be very fast to work with and can get almost every shot, and the 7.5mm can get those grand wides when required. Setup will also be very small, with just GX85 + 12-35mm + wrist-strap, and only 7.5mm lens and a couple of spare batteries in the pockets. Very streamlined! Potentially I could put my Tiffen BPM 1/8 on the end as well and get a bit of flaring in there too! Thinking of camera and lens combos makes me much more excited that it really should 🙂

OOPS!

In case anyone was curious about the GF3 frames that @mercer mentioned, here they are. SOOC: and here's the same three after being tweaked and put through a Kodak 250D / Kodak 2393 emulation: Those are all screen grabs from the GF3's whopping 17Mbps 1080p. Whopping! Nice looking screen grabs! In terms of your logic, I've tended to hang out with people who were computer engineers, computer scientists, applied electronics experts, etc, and they routinely adopted new technology based upon sound engineering principles and solid judgement. This, of course, meant that I have watched quite a bit of Betamax, and quite a bit of Laserdisc too. As time went on I became less technical myself and so I missed HD-DVD, and I never ran into a DVD-Audio player of any repute, but I did listen to a collection of SACDs on a $150K hifi system and with a single exception all were inferior to the CD version of the same recording. I'll take your vote for CD-I as a vote of confidence on your technical abilities any day - just because the marketing department voted against you isn't anything to be judged by!

I've heard War and Peace should do the trick, assuming she can hold it up for that long. Maybe get a book stand.

As usual your logic is impeccable. This is why it frustrates me that cameras often make you choose between a flat log profile, with it's noise and quantisation errors amplified in post, or a 709 profile with limited dynamic range. The XC10 was interesting in that it's standard profile didn't clip the highlights, just rolled them off rather heavily. Kind of like a HLG profile does with a hybrid 709 and log gamma - the secret was in the name... Who knew! In a sense you'd actually want a profile that was like film - linear in the middle and shoulders in the highlights and shadows, but also with a saturation curve that is maybe a log of saturation and boosted significantly, which would ensure no clipping occurred and would capture more subtleties in lower saturation areas and lose resolution in the higher saturation areas where less sensitive colour reproduction is fine. Then a colour profile / LUT could be used in post to reverse the saturation curve, or, you could just pull it down linearly and would end up nicely desaturating the strongest colours, which is an effect that I use quite a bit and have a power grade specifically for.

Absolutely - I'm right there with you. I think that family videography (at home or out and about) is as different and distinct a genre as basically anything else in film-making. Unfortunately, there is little around that takes it seriously, and there's almost no work publicly available so there's not much to reference either. That definitely applied to me. I was coming from a stills background where resolution and sharpness is a religion, and not to be even questioned! My first video experiences from ILC's were the ultra-soft 17Mbps GF3 video files and then the ultra-soft 1080p from my Canon 700D. Not knowing that these were both tremendously bad examples of 1080p, I assumed that I needed 4K and went all in with that, buying a 4K camera, new computer to play the files, and 4K monitor to view the footage on. If only I knew..... Steve Yedlin makes a comment in his resolution demo saying that when SD was the format having more resolution was absolutely the right goal. The problem was that we kept going.... I hadn't really considered the idea of how valuable my equipment is, but rather how noticeable it is, which is likely to predict the risk of theft, amongst other things such as your own behaviour. Thanks, that's useful. How is the 45-150mm lens? I've got a Canon FD 70-210/4, but it's older and designed for FF so isn't so sharp, and I'd wondered about getting a longer MFT zoom. Having OIS on top of IBIS would also be beneficial. I'm not that fussed about how fast it is as I'm not filming things far away in low light, and with the long focal length even a "slow" lens has good background separation. I have the SLR Magic 8mm but found it fiddly to use so upgraded to the 7.5mm F2 which is a really nice lens. If you end up selling your surplus lenses then I'd suggest considering that as an upgrade. I have the 12-35mm F2.8 so that might be a good match for the GX85 when it arrives.

That's why I called you out.

Yes, the promise of greener grass tempts us all from time to time! What were you filming and what lenses were you using? I have a vague memory of someone shooting with a compact camera and Voigtlander MFT primes - was this you? I'm keen to hear more about which lenses you were using and how you were using them? I think it depends on the quality of the in-camera processing. I've compared my GH5 in 5K vs 4K vs 1080p modes across a range of lenses and apertures and found that: In most tests the resolution of the lens (eg, when at wider apertures) or my (unreliable) ability to nail focus was the limiting factor I couldn't tell any difference in resolution between the 5K and 4K when put onto a 4K timeline (it's an unfair test but no-one watches 5K files so it's a real-world advantage) The differences between the 5/4K and the 1080p were only visible by pixel-peeping a single frame where there was no motion, but when viewed full-screen at a sensible viewing distance no differences were apparent, even on the clips where the pixel-peeping revealed differences Addition of almost imperceptible amount of sharpening in post easily overwhelmed any differences in resolution between the modes I'll likely be using the GX85 in the 4K mode to get the higher bitrate so it's a moot point for here, but an interesting technical side-note nonetheless. What are you shooting with it and what lenses are you using? I'm keen to hear how people are using these little cameras. I've been having an ongoing conversation with @mercer about the DSLR revolution and the promise vs reality of what technology has done for film-making. The view that I've come to is that: 35mm film cameras and film stock used to be hugely expensive and impractical, only studios could afford to make films, and the size/weight/loudness of the camera meant that films were managed like production-lines with specialised technicians in every role, and traditional "coverage" became the standard Super-16 film stock became good enough for cinema and cameras light enough to enable filming handheld in available light, which opened up film-making to those outside the studio system, and this spawned the French New Wave and the radical innovation that came with it The DSLR revolution happened, effectively providing the camera and unlimited film stock for free (compared to celluloid). People predicted that this would revolutionise cinema yet again, like the French New Wave had done. This didn't happen. At this point the camera / media had become a minor component of a feature film and it made no appreciable difference to the extraordinary logistics required to produce a quality piece of cinema - writing, production design, locations, art department, hair/makeup, cast, crew, grip, time in post, negotiating the maze of distribution, and challenge of monetising, etc. It did, however, create a revolution in video. Instead of the "Digital New Wave of Artistic Cinema" we got the "Digital Video Explosion", including Wedding Videography, Engagement Videography, Stealth Marriage Proposal Videography (bring your camo and long lenses!), Vlogs, Social Media "stories", memes, viral videos, "Influencer" as a profession, the sharing of a thousand trillion instances of someone saying "this video is sponsored by", and the sharing of one trillion instances of someone saying "burnout". I'm not really sure what the role of something like Dogme 21 would be. Curious to hear your thoughts though! Have you tried shooting slightly wider and stabilising in post? It dissociates the motion blur from the movement in the frame but for shots without much movement it can be quite effective. I've been shooting with my GF3 and 14mm lens. It has a rather soft 17Mbps 1080p image and is auto-everything so in bright light has short exposures and this no motion blur. However, when I stabilise the footage the combination of the wide lens and the low-resolution codec mean that it's indistinguishable from a properly shot clip as any motion blur would have been so small in the frame that it would have been obscured by the resolution anyway. To this end, the lower quality frees me to shoot more rough-and-ready and to process more heavily in post and "get away with it", so my inner camera nerd can just put IQ to one side and the creative parts of my can proceed unaffected. I'm planning on using mine with many of my vintage lenses, so I'm really looking forward to that. I have a strange fascination with vintage primes that I can't quite define, and TBH I don't actually understand. For example, I have a Voigtlander 42.5mm f0.95 lens, which actually has significant vintage-like qualities in vignetting edge softness and softening at wider apertures, BUT I still gravitate to the Helios / SB combination whenever I pass my lens collection. The Helios is inferior in basically every way to the Voigtlander, but there's something there that I can't explain. The entire principle of Go Shoot is that I can pick up the camera and whatever lens(es) I am curious about and go shoot some footage and then edit it up into a little project. I frequently use these opportunities for lens testing or other "research" purposes. I expect that will continue - and maybe even expand! I keep sharing screengrabs with some forum members from my GF3, which was released around the time of the GH2, and the feedback has been universally "that camera is so small/cheap that it almost doesn't deserve to have an image that nice come from it"! There is something enticing about getting great images from a cheap setup.

LOL.. You're pulling rank? Normally when someone does the old "Don't you know who I am" argument it means that talking about the subject isn't working so they try to regain credibility via other channels. Hilarious!

Yes, if you're convincing an athlete to wear something then it's a different story I guess. Although I could make the argument that you could get those shots with heavier cameras, it's just that the talent doesn't want to lol. But even then, your point just strengthens the better codec argument. If you can't get those shots with anything else then why don't these companies offer a nicer codec, considering they've cornered the market. For film-making the quality of GoPro / etc was so awful that RED made an entire product to replace them: https://ymcinema.com/2020/06/08/reds-baby-dragon-komodo-an-action-cinema-camera/

I'm not shooting the messenger - if a person opens their mouth and strange content comes out then questioning it isn't "shooting" anything, and your opinions are your own, so you're also not a "messenger". I routinely see dramatic contradictions in what you say, which you can frame as "filling the cup for both" but I see a lot of logical error and internal inconsistencies. Saying, for example, that you don't know of any differences between cinema and video cameras, and then when I take a good amount of time to list a number of them, replying with a dismissive "I know" comment. Well, either you do know what the differences are or you don't, but there is no "cup" that includes knowing something and also not knowing it at the same time. Or, at least, there isn't room in conversations about cameras, and these comments should be relegated to the philosophy forums where people can endlessly debate if cameras exist or if they don't, along with the entire world and each other. To try and return to the actual point, in terms of the BM cameras being divas, I'll grant that the IU is very nice to use, sure. I'll also grant that the P6K Pro is far more self-contained than the P6K or P4K. However, you still need to use an IR filter on them. You still need external media to get the high-resolution modes when shooting RAW. You still need a rig or OIS lenses to get relatively stable footage. If you are talking about the P6K and P4K, then there are huge additional challenges such as needing an external monitor in most situations, needing external power setups, etc. The S1, and cameras like it, do not have these challenges, and are much more self-contained. I can pick up my GH5, put in two SD cards, a battery (and a spare one in my pocket), put on a vintage prime lens, and then go out and shoot for an entire day, in the highest quality mode it allows (5K 10-bit 422 or 4K 10-bit 422 ALL-I) and get great footage. BUT, let's talk about the user experience. I haven't used a S1 or equivalent, but I'd imagine they have similar features to the GH5. I have my GH5 setup so that: C1 is: 1080p / 200Mbps / ALL-I / HLG 24p, A-mode, with 17.5mm / 42.5mm / 7.5mm as the present IBIS focal lengths C2 is: 1080p / 200Mbps / ALL-I / HLG 60p, A-mode, with 17.5mm / 42.5mm / 7.5mm as the present IBIS focal lengths C3 is: 1080p / 150Mbps / Long-GOP / Cine-D 120p, A-mode, with 135mm / 200mm / 42.5mm as the present IBIS focal lengths C4 is 4K / 150Mbps / Long-GOP / HLG 24p, A-mode, with 17.5mm / 42.5mm / 7.5mm as the present IBIS focal lengths C4 is 5K / 200Mbps? / Long-GOP / HLG 24p, M-mode, with 17.5mm / 42.5mm / 7.5mm as the present IBIS focal lengths I can change the frame rate, bitrate, codec type, and preset IBIS modes in under a second. I can do that and guarantee I'm not going to forget one and end up with a combination that doesn't make any sense. I can do that without even looking. Yes, I had to read the manual to learn how to do that. I realise that not everyone has the capacity to do such a thing, so if that's something that you're trying to avoid due to some sort of personal barrier then I sympathise, maybe you can get a friend to assist you with this. Luckily it only has to be set once and is then saved by the camera. Taking my comment about the "BM cameras" and reducing it down to one line, when it's obvious you haven't actually considered how these things get used in the field doesn't actually help these conversations, and worse, people who aren't experts and come here looking for help will mistakenly believe that your dismissing one-liners come from a place of wisdom and knowledge, when instead they come from a place of shallow consideration and having multiple opinions that disagree with each other set to random.

There's more to a camera than the user interface. The more posts I read from you the more I wonder if you're just trolling and missing the point on purpose....

I'd make sure a P4K / P6K would work better for what you do than an S1 - the S1 is likely to be a much more user-friendly camera than the BM cameras, which are basically divas. In terms of colour and image, nothing beats RAW, and nothing beats a colour matching scheme that works on RAW. In terms of @austinchimp comment around colour matching, I've found the GHa LUTs to be extremely finicky to use in practice, and they only really work when conditions are basically perfect. This is because they don't completely reverse the colour science back to what the sensor reads out, so some of the colour science in the Pana cameras remains. This is why there are two separate LUTs for different white balances. Alternatively, Juan Melara did some excellent work replicating ARRI RAW from an Alexa from the BM cameras, which works on the RAW from the P4K or P6K (they're different LUTs IIRC) which is likely to be a much more robust emulation of the colour. I can understand if you're not loving the texture of a compressed file, but if you're not getting good colour out of your S1 then I'd say you're expecting too much at your skill level. As a reality check, I'd suggest going and downloading a bunch of Alexa clips and grading them to see what they're like. Alexa footage looks great when shot by a serious pro and once a professional colourist has done their magic, but looking at the RAW footage taken in less-than-ideal situations is a great way to "add some perspective" about how much of a great image is the camera, and how much is the colourist. *hint - it's the colourist*

Very nice! I like the overall production - shots, editing, music, colour. It's hard to make a "silent" (no dialogue) edit but this is quite engaging. Walking is always a challenge. I find walking with a cup of water to be a good exercise, and if you're not allowed to spill anything, you can just have a bottle with some water in it and try to keep the surface calm. I find it's the moment that your foot hits the ground that sends the biggest shock through your body, which is what the "ninja walk" mostly concentrates on, a sort-of placing your foot and then rolling onto it instead of just putting it directly down with your weight at the same time. An alternative is to walk on your toes, which adds another joint into the cushioning process (the ankle). I've heard from runners that we're not meant to run on our heels, and certainly if you look at other animals and compare bones structure and contact points they are basically walking on their toes too. My approach for minimal run-n-gun (shooting with just camera and lens and nothing else - I wish there was a word for this) is to either shoot with 180 shutter and ND and try to be stable, or to expose with SS and stabilise in post. If you do the latter then there will be no motion blur when objects move, but also no blur when you walk as the short SS will create crisp frames and the stabilisation will arrange those crisp images so that one frame doesn't move that far from the previous one. It's a matter of taste and of situation and subject matter. If your subjects aren't moving much then there would be very little blur anyway, so it doesn't matter so much. The batteries for my GX85 arrived today, but the camera itself is remarkably close to the exact opposite side of the planet from me!

For those that use fixed NDs, I'm curious how you dial in the right exposure. What I mean is, the reason to use an ND at all is to have a set shutter speed for nicer motion / movement. Aesthetically there is a LARGE difference between, say, 180 shutter and 90 shutter, and 45 shutter is much closer aesthetically to no shutter than to 180. This means that you'll set your SS, then have to adjust exposure either in post, using ISO, or using Aperture. I'm thinking most codecs are ok to adjust <1 stops, so you could be using that to fine-tune, but that means that you're either changing the amount of noise / colour rendering by changing ISO away from base ISO, or you're adjusting aperture, which impacts your background defocusing. Are you carrying a set of 1 stop, 2 stop, 4 stop, and 8 stop NDs? If not, you'll have to work out what to adjust to fine-tune, and none of the other things come without a creative cost. If you are carrying a full set of fixed NDs, how fast do you find it is to adjust exposure when setting up a shot?

I've heard that anamorphics can vary the squeeze factor depending on where the object is in the frame, and perhaps also depending on focus distance (ie, focussing far or near). There are several ways to design an anamorphic lens and IIRC the better designs are also far larger / heavier / more expensive, so it's definitely a thing. Anything round should be a good reference - I'd suggest mucking around with your crystal ball and seeing how you go. If you find that it's giving you the lottery numbers then PM me - happy to share the profits of the idea I helped inspire!! Have you seen the excellent series on YT by Anamorphic On A Budget? Great Stuff.