kye

Thanks, this is all very useful. I was thinking that I would want something that is a combination of contrast and resolution reduction without halation, but I'm not so sure now. Perhaps my main challenge is that it would be for shooting in available lighting, and so that means that the sun and other bright sources may well either be in frame, or out of frame but still hitting the filter. Something like a contrast filter, with its very wide spread of light, would have a radical effect if the sun was hitting the filter, even if it was out of frame by a large amount. I suspect these filters, and the people that want to emulate them in software, all assume that every scene will be controlled lighting and there will be no significant light sources in or outside of frame. That's where the halation filters come in. They spread the light quite widely, but no-where near as widely as the contrast ones do, so the frame won't be blown out when the sun is a long way out of frame. I'll have to do more research and work out what that special something is that I'm seeing. Interestingly, when I look at some of the filters I get that "ooh, it doesn't look like video any more" effect, but it doesn't seem to get less like video when the strength of the filter increases, so in that sense, maybe what I want is the filter that will do this "not video" effect but with the least amount of effect, so when I'm shooting something in golden hour the sun then it won't just blow out the whole frame, and I don't have to muck around with lens hoods. Your comments about the filter being in-front vs behind the lens are interesting too, considering that I may use this on a zoom lens, so obviously that would change the strength of the effect, or perhaps more accurately, the size / radius of the effect in relation to the size of the frame. Ultimately, all the ones we're talking about (digital diffusion, HDTV, smoque) all had that magic while not really impacting the image too much otherwise, except that I'm having trouble finding samples shot outside where the flare from the sun is a factor. I'll have to look into them more and see if I can extrapolate what they might look like from what I can find at sunset and the relative strength and spread from that Scatter plugin.

Funny, I looked for the part where they increase the DR of your camera in post, and I couldn't find it. I consulted the laws of physics, who seemed dubious but referred me to their friend AI. AI said they're working on it, but it would be easier just to buy a contrast reduction filter and use it while shooting.

Funny you should mention that, but I watched the 38 minute Tiffen demo video last night (it was riveting - I won't spoil the ending if you haven't watched it..) and I was thinking that I might be more interested in the areas further away from the halation corner and towards lowering contrast and resolution. On first review the Digital Diffusion, HDTV FX, Black Satin and Smoque were of the most interest, with the filters in the halation corner seeming to push the image too far very quickly, whereas the others seemed to add a certain something but then not fall off a cliff when the filter was stronger. My criteria was whatever makes the unfiltered one look cheapest / most video / most digital, but without looking like the image quality has gone funny. I'm particularly interested in the contrast corner as it increases the effective DR of your camera, which is something that we'd almost all appreciate.

Go read the thread again. You missed some things.

Not quite, for many reasons which we've gone through already. This thread has more info than you ever wanted to know about emulating a Tiffen BPM filter in post.

The more I try to get a higher-end / less video-looking image, the more I keep coming back to filters. We've all heard about the Tiffen Black Pro Mist filters, but there's a whole world of them out there, Tiffen and other brands. I'm curious who uses filters, for any reason really, but particularly to counter the video look.

Yeah, they're kind of gimmicky, and I guess Oly wouldn't want the pixel peepers buying them thinking they're "real" lenses and then trashing them online. Expectation management I guess. Canon did the same thing with the XC10 - when it launched it was on their website in the cinema camera section but very quickly it moved to some other random section. That makes sense, both the 15 being more common and also the simpler construction making it cheaper. It's a 30mm equivalent FOV, so much closer to the focal lengths that are easier to design and build, like a nifty fifty etc. Wider lenses seem to be far less common, and if you go deep into C-Mounts and coverage the difficulty was always at the wide end. Lots of cine zooms by the big names that were 50-250+ or other ridiculous lengths, and just leave me wondering why they didn't go for a more 24-70 type range that covers the middle ground, but wider lenses are more difficult and expensive to make and correct all the issues etc. Why only those lenses? Are you just thinking that lenses longer than 25mm won't be well stabilised, or is it a weight issue? Maybe some of the newer Chinese lenses might be light enough from being cheaper plastic construction? Or maybe they protrude too much to balance?

Yeah, imagine if they did.. Meanwhile, I'm trying to actually unpack what it is that makes an image great, rather than which camera has the highest numbers. No wonder I'm confused and having a hard time about it. Those that don't know, talk, and those that do know, don't. It's easier to swim downstream I guess.

Not sure why, but there's quite a difference in price.... Maybe the "3 left in stock" means that's not a normal price, or maybe it's that the 9mm is the international version and looking at the delivery dates it obviously ships from overseas. Commerce and the foibles of markets are strange sometimes, although they gave us lenses like the Helios that are crazily cheap for what they are, so it's not all bad!

Is this where we post rumours? Excellent... Here's a GH6 rumour from the GH5 FB group that everyone might find useful.

Yeah, all the discussions I've read about people buying lens sets to rent out where either talking about EF and PL so that seems to be where the industry is at.

Totally agree, they should be restricting classes to camcorders in order to teach story, narrative, lighting, composition, and things that make good movies and TV. Youtube is busy teaching people everything about film-making that doesn't matter, like how to make 'cinematic' videos, when unfortunately all that does is train people to make videos that are sequences of epic B-roll that have no real content. The presence of the latter makes the former even more important!

Sounds to me like you're not aiming high enough. I'll leave you to your comfort zone....

Commenting on the highlighted sections... It's not about being an idiot - it's about asking questions about things that you don't understand. You and I can tell that this isn't a handheld camera in the sense that it is specialised for the task, but people who don't know this will get distracted and confused by it, and a conversation between people who know it and people who don't will just be confusing as they won't be able to tell who is right and who isn't. Another way to say this is that it's not a problem if you already understand the topic. That's great, if all you do is talk to people about things you already understand. I'm different. I spend a good amount of my time trying to learn things, things where I am the idiot who doesn't know things. I've tried on dozens of occasions to ask questions and had the threads completely derailed because of confusion about words and phrases and people with differing skill levels not effectively communicating with each other. It's not a theoretical phenomena, it's even cost me money. I've bought expensive books or pieces of equipment because somewhere in some confusing as hell thread on it those things got mentioned. I get them and they don't help. Later, after I have struggled through learning this stuff the hard way (have a look at how many tests and stuff I do myself - I do this partly because it's not possible to get clear answers about this stuff online) I have revisited the confusing conversations to re-read them and now I can see who knew what they were talking about and who didn't. Unfortunately I spent the money and the time and the confusion while I was being an idiot, thinking that these things might help me, which is what you have to be to learn something new. Saying that terminology doesn't matter because only idiots can't tell, is basically saying you don't care about learning and anyone who dares to read about new material is an idiot. Well, I'm an idiot, but the real idiots are the people who don't ever try to learn something new.

I'm picky because it's just misleading. People went completely bananas when the P4K was released about it not fitting in a pocket, also because that was misleading. I think that over time words get used, then misused, then appropriated, and then they become meaningless and just confuse people. Think about the word 'cinematic'. Once upon a time it used to mean something, but now, any time there is a conversation about film, someone who thinks the word cinematic means something will use it, and the people who know it doesn't mean anything then talk about the word, then the whole conversation goes sideways and the only thing that people learn is that conversations on the internet are frustrating and go no-where. In terms of this being a "handheld" camera, sure. According to what criteria? We used to talk about cameras that were particularly good at stabilisation, but now apparently the criteria is to be light enough to hold, and accepts OIS lenses. Great, so now the phrase "handheld" means every camera under 3kg made in the last decade. The next time that someone who shoots handheld in extreme situations where great performance is really required asks a question they will get met with a sea of numptys who think that handheld means basically any camera on earth, and if the person shoots in a situation where an the P6KPro wouldn't cut it and a camera with excellent IBIS / OIS integration is genuinely required then they are going to have to wade through the people who don't understand that OIS doesn't truly distinguish a camera. Effectively it just creates noise and more hassle to have real conversations about things. The way that I would summarise a camera like this would be "you CAN use it for handheld work, but I wouldn't call it a handheld camera" and this kind of statement represents some nuance and context. Unfortunately when the manufacturer themselves calls it such, it's just one more thing getting in the way and not being helpful. I'm happy to drop the subject and not hijack the thread, but it's kind of equivalent to Apple calling the latest iPhone a 'cinema' camera and then forums like this being full of random Apple fanboys who fill up every thread discussing cinema cameras arguing with people about why the iPhone should be on their shortlists, because "it's a cinema camera too"!

That doesn't make the camera a hand-held camera, it makes those lenses handheld lenses. Name a camera that isn't a handheld camera then. It's like saying that my dining room table is a cocktail table because it is compatible with cocktail making equipment. By that logic my dining table is also a boat table, because:

Literally, the first thing underneath the name of the camera is: HANDHELD..... I carefully read the page looking for IBIS, but no mention of it. So, it's handheld for the same reason that any other camera under 3Kg is handheld. Excuse me while I sip my handheld coffee, contemplate all my handheld lenses and handheld memory cards and type this on my handheld laptop. I'd like to see them create the GH5 successor. It's an entirely different market, but within reach. People loved the GH5 for video because: IBIS reliability, no overheating, and battery life good codecs anamorphic and slow-motion modes flippy screen MFT lens mount can adapt most other lens mounts compact and light for hand-held and gimbal use low price for the features (at the time) The BM cameras meet quite a lot of these, but for many including myself, the P4K is a mixture of things I don't want/need and the absence of things I use all the time. I own a Micro, their cheapest current camera, and it's nothing like the GH5 in terms of usability - apart from being cheap it has almost nothing in common with the GH5 or how I shoot for that matter. I'm aware that the GH5 is a hybrid, but I suspect many users don't care about stills, and besides, BM don't seem to understand that the P6KPro isn't a hybrid. I think there's room in their lineup for a more video-centric camera that fits into the above spec, and it wouldn't be cannibalising much of their existing customer base, as not many GH5 fans could use a P4K, and not many P4K fans could use a GH5. There seems to be an entire market segment of wedding videographers, music video creators, social media influencers, who are faced with the choice of a camera that can shoot how they want (reliable in the field and fast to work with) and what they want (RAW and high-bitrate/bit-depth codecs) but there aren't many cheap offerings that span this gap. These people are doing comparisons like A7S3 vs Komodo vs C70 and the like. These comparisons always have the tone of Lamborghini vs Hummer vs Mercedes S-Class - all great performers but for vastly different tasks and if these things are being directly compared then there is something wrong. Oh, and nothing is remotely affordable. This seems like a gap in the market to me.

I'm here all week - tell your friends!

Something that comes to mind is their expectations about the colour grade. It's one thing to re-use compressed files, but if you have to change WB or levels significantly to be able to intercut footage from different finished pieces then the footage can fall apart pretty easily. If your edit isn't really jumping around between lots of differently sourced footage then it wouldn't be a problem, for example if each scene was from the same source, but if you're telling a non-linear story or something like that then it might get very crunchy very quickly, and then be something that is worse than their expectations.

Oh, and it makes the camera look pretty small, and highly pocketable due to the lens having almost no thickness:

Interesting write-up and I completely agree with your ethos of less being more, as long as the footage is good enough. Depending on the situation I have different levels of tolerance for how big (and therefore how intrusive) the camera can be. I've used everything from a naked GoPro to my various DSLR + Rode VMP sized rigs, and less is absolutely more. I've been tossing things up lately about getting a third Go Shoot camera to compliment the SJ4000 action camera and GF3 + 15/8 lens cap combos. The driving force is that the SJ4000 30p footage looks so thin you need those butchers chainlink gloves to edit it, and the GF3 footage is 25p and nicer but still not that great and the camera isn't easy to use with basically no controls in video at all and no focus assists or anything. But anything that is bigger than the GF3 better be absolutely killing it in the IQ department to justify its size, but I've had some ideas so watch this space. Yeah, I'm with you. I alluded above to being willing to sacrifice a little size for a huge bump in IQ and have some plans. I know that when I get the 10-bit footage from the GH5 into Resolve it's just a dream to edit and all my frustrations with camera whatevers all go away and I forget that RAW or 6K or 8K or 14 stops of DR or whatever even exists. Beautiful tools are beautiful to use throughout the whole production and post-production process. No vignetting for me either... a few test shots converted from RAW 4000x3000 stills: It's really quite a modern lens, with high contrast and flare resistance, and while it isn't tack sharp, it's probably sharper than the 100Mbps bitrate of the average 4K codec. I'm seeing a blur of about 2 pixels on the RAW 4K images, and most lenses don't get much sharper than that, especially for the USD$47 this cost me, brand new:

I think you forgot to put a lens on that camera! 😆😆😆 Going back to your previous comment about the gimbal 'floaty' look, I'm not a fan of it either, but that doesn't mean I'm against gimbals. They have a bunch of looks that don't give the 'floaty' aesthetic: Getting a quick static shot while keeping mobile where they eliminate the micro-jitters of hand-holding but don't add motion They can do reasonable shots pan/tilt if you stand still and just pan/tilt the camera They can do reasonable crane shots if you're standing still or have it on a long pole and there is nothing close to the camera to give away the fact your motion might not be in a smooth path They can be programmed to move the camera, eg, slow movement for time lapses etc, or even just a slow pan or tilt and this works well when attached to a solid object rather than being held It's a matter of using them wisely and knowing what things cause that look and what doesn't. No vignetting I could see - very nice! I also like flowers. I thought @noone had put it on 2x digital zoom, which should be an MFT crop exactly. Maybe something else was going on filming a monitor so close? Not entirely sure. Either way, I'm fine with it. Those pics even have some background separation which is pretty cool. I've wanted one of those lenses for years for street photography and one of the cool things people talked about was that you learned to pre-focus by touch because the control was so tactile and because of the large DoF small errors in focus distance weren't really a problem. I've also found lenses to be heaps of fun. With MFT you can adapt lots of lenses but they're all so long withe the MFT crop, and it seems that in the earlier days there weren't the wider lenses that are around now. For example, I struggle to find a C-Mount TV zoom that's wider than 50mm or so (FF equivalent FOV). I think vintage lenses would be even more fun if I had a FF mirrorless camera to play with them on. Was the wedding a paid gig? I can really see how such a small camera would be great for such an occasion - the feeling of freedom and ability to really move quickly. I find that when I talk to people who use full-size cameras, maybe in a rig of some kind, and I talk about cameras that are smaller than a full-size body and how they let you move faster, most people don't get it, I don't know if they don't understand that smaller cameras are more freeing, or that it's possible to be more free than they currently are with their "lightweight run and gun" GH5 / 18-35 / shotgun mic on sticks setup. I even notice the difference between P&S sized cameras and an action camera. I shot a project on just a GoPro Hero 3 black at an event (it was a personal project as a present to a friend) and the camera was so portable and getting angles that you wouldn't do with a normal setup. It was atrocious in low light though, and I had to work really hard in post to make it work, but my friend was really happy with it. Here it is... Something like the RX100 with it's low-light capabilities would be lots of fun to work with!

This statement is behind every piece of frustration that basically anyone has ever had about the files a camera delivers. Unless the camera can write a RAW stream in every mode that the sensor supports, then that's the entire problem. You're frustrated by lack of open-gate functions in FF cameras, I'm frustrated with my sub-$100 action camera that applies dreadful sharpening and NR to its 2MP sensor and then writes the files in abysmal quality 15Mbps h264, the P2K became a cult camera for writing RAW 1080p internally, the GH5 got hype for the 5K open-gate modes and 4K 400Mbps ALL-I modes, the P4K got hype for RAW 4K60 internally, ML has people voiding their warranties on cameras to get higher quality video to the card, etc etc. Taking the image from the sensor and not stomping on it before writing it to the SD card is basically the only thing we care about and talk about.

Interesting - a good amount of vignetting on MFT sized sensor readout. All I can say to that is... EXCELLENT! I may end up slightly compensating for that in post, but maybe not. We'll see. In theory, mine arrives tomorrow 🙂 What was it about the RX100V that you most enjoyed? How is the ZV1 as a replacement? Do you mean modifying a GoPro? with something like a backbone mod? I was looking for c-mount lenses and came upon this which I thought was an interesting concept: https://cmount.com/product/c-mount-modified-sony-rx0-3-lens-atomos-shogun-inferno-4k-recorder-package/ Thanks Leslie! I'm not sure that taking up abseiling is a substitute for travel, but thankfully I have enough toys at home to keep me from getting desperate and grabbing some string and jumping off buildings 😛

Popped down the beach and caught a half-decent sunset... GF3 and Voigtlander 17.5mm lens. It only has a full-auto-everything video mode, so I used the old trick of setting it to manual mode for stills, selecting base ISO, 1/50 SS, then dialling in the exposure with vND/aperture then hitting record and letting it automatically choose what I want it to choose. It's soft as hell due to the low bitrate of the GF3, the lack of focus assists, and the fact that it was windy and I forgot to take a jumper so my mild hand-shake created the need for stabilisation in post 🙂 Most FUN... not most useful! I don't yet own a glass balcony clamp, but buying one will just add to the enjoyment of easing lockdowns and being able to actually go, well, anywhere. Very nice!