Vintage Jimothy

Yeah, I'm honestly shocked that Panasonic have been taking so long to release their own top end Large Format cinema camera to compete with ARRI, RED and especially Sony. The Varicam was really popular with a ton of Netflix shows, but it's quickly been replaced for a ton of those productions with the Sony Venice.

Speaking of the VariCam, I’m honestly shocked that Panasonic haven’t announced a full frame/Large Format version of the camera yet.

Yeah, I was able to make it relatively easier on myself to switch from M43 to L-mount in part because the only native M43 lens I have is the kit lens that came with my G85. The lens kit I built for myself was comprised entirely of vintage SLR lenses from the M42 and Minolta MD mounts and were easily adaptable to the L-mount. I'm currently unable to autofocus with the S1 because of that, for obvious reasons, but then I rarely ever used autofocus with the G85 anyway. It really is crazy just how much new life Panasonic breathed into the S1 with Firmware 2.0. I've no doubt that we'll see plenty of more advanced models with even better specs come out in the relatively near future, but practically speaking I could absolutely get away with using the S1 as my main camera without upgrading for a good 3-5 years or so. Perhaps even longer once I pick up a Blackmagic Video Assist 12G recorder to utilize the camera's RAW output capabilities.

It really is crazy how great of a value the S1 is, especially used with the V-Log upgrade already installed. I went from using a G85 to the S1 and while I've done good work with the former camera, there really is a noticeable difference in capability that the S1 provides.

I'm going to cheer if Panasonic gives the S1 a firmware update to use BRAW, even if it's just externally.

Yeah, I've been building a basic set of Minoltas for awhile now and I swear by them. They never let me down. Heck, one of the more memorable films I've seen this year (Identifying Features) was almost entirely shot on a set of vintage Minolta Rokkors! And if there's one thing that every review I've read has in common with this film, it's that the cinematography is gorgeous.

Yeah, I spent the last two months prepping myself to buy a brand new S5, but wound up opting for a used S1 with the V-Log upgrade pack and Firmware 2.0 already installed. I would've been happy either way, I'm sure, but I think if you come across an S1 with all of its bells and whistles already in place, it's generally going to be the better value over the S5. For me, the biggest tradeoff is that I'm buying the S1 without any native L-mount lenses, its backscreen isn't a normal "flip-out" screen and I'll probably need to buy newer/faster SD cards and a CFExpress Type B card or two. Then again, all but one of my current lenses are all manual focus anyway and I've rarely ever needed to use the flip out screen on my G85 in previous gigs I've done. So really the only real issue I'll be running into for now is just buying new memory cards to better utilize the capabilities of the S1. I do find it a bit ironic that for all of Panasonic's extra efforts to prop up the S1 and boost its capabilities, the camera's value lies best in buying it used. Buying an S1 new and paying an extra $200 for the V-Log upgrade to go with it just takes the price of the camera up too close to something like the A7S3. And at that point, you're much better off just buying a new S5 at $2000/$2300 with a kit lens. I did the math when I bought my S1 and I saved at least $1000 overall in buying the camera used.

Glad to hear that! I'm hoping Panasonic eventually bring BRAW to the S1 and S5 too, but in the meantime I'm sure I'll be satisfied with the internal codecs the S1 now has. It's a total quantum leap from my trusty G85 that I've been using for the last three years.

Just bought a used S1 with V-Log and Firmware 2.0 already installed. And I gotta say... I am really looking forward to trying this monster out when it arrives!

How's the manual focusing? Is it linear and if so, how long is the focus throw?

Not to mention, as far as I can tell, there hasn't been much in the way of introducing and releasing new lenses for the M43 mount that are unique to the ecosystem either. Meanwhile, the full frame lens market is exploding with new glass. Obviously a lot of that is due to certain mounts (L, RF and Z mounts for instance) still being relatively new and their companies are trying to catch up to Sony and the E-mount to flesh out their lineups, but even the E-mount has a lot of new glass coming out these days from third party companies. Micro Four Thirds though? Not so much. Obviously there are already plenty of native lenses out there for the ecosystem, but between Olympus folding, as well as the lack of new glass and new bodies from Panasonic, it really does feel like M43 is generally a dead-end at this point. The GH5 and the Pocket 4K seem likely to be the final hurrays.

I had no idea until I saw this thread that Falcon Eyes had released an updated model on their RX-24TDX and RX-18TD flex lights. Have you ever been able to compare your Mark II model to the older original variants? I've been eyeing one of them for awhile now, so I'm curious if it'd be in my best interest to save up a bit more to get the new models. Also could you provide any more feedback on the Luxli Taiko? There's only a handful of videos on that light compared to the new Aputure P300c, and while it'll be quite awhile before I could afford buying either one, I'd love to hear input on which light would be the better option to invest in first.

Holy smokes, practically all of the sample footage in that video is stellar. Really hope a translation comes out for this review soon, as I'd love to hear this guy's thoughts in detail on the camera. Also, your argument about the advantages Sony has over the competition right now are, for better or worse, spot on. They're just flat-out further along than everyone else in the field when it comes to having an ecosystem of full frame mirrorless cameras and lenses to work with. Not to decry the value of other cameras (the RAW footage of the Sigma fp is genuinely beautiful, and if you're A-okay with APS-C/Super35 only then Fuji is a dream), but unless Panasonic hits the ball out of the stadium soon with vastly improved autofocus on its next generation of L-mount cameras, Sony is likely only going to continue dominating the market for full frame mirrorless.

The problem there is that their existing L-mount lenses are designed for Contrast Focus, so there'd probably still be a growing pains period for Panasonic in transitioning over to Phase Detect. But yes, at this point, they really do need to start to that transition as soon as possible if they want to really seal the deal on the market.

While this camera is certainly interesting and I can see certain advantages in pursuing 12K (though I think 6K and 8K are both already more than enough for most any production), I do kinda agree with people that it feels like the wrong camera for Blackmagic to make and put out there in this particular moment. A full frame 4K or 6K cinema camera would've probably been the smarter call, even if it is the more 'obvious' option.

Went back in DaVinci and fiddled around with the Luminance and Saturation with the built-in ARRI Rec709 LUT. Holy moly, this looks gorgeous.

Here's what I got after just putting DaVinci Resolve's built in ARRI Rec709 LUT on that footage. Looks pretty great to me, though I could maybe try to saturate it a bit more for warmer skintones.

Not at all, I absolutely get that some videographers will need a camera that's recording one file for an extended period of time. Especially anyone working in wedding videography. And in that regard, the Canon R5 clearly isn't the right fit for that sort of workflow or niche of filmmaker, which I'd say is a big bummer for anyone in that field of work that was looking forward to this camera. That said, by the same coin, not every videographer or filmmaker needs to have a camera recording non-stop. Which is also fine! I've personally been using a Panasonic G85 for two years now and it's served me well mostly. One reason I picked it up initially was because it didn't have recording limits for video files, unlike a lot of the alternatives I was looking at within a similar price range. And while that's certainly come in handy a few times, looking back on all of the work I've done in those two years, I rarely ever recorded footage continuously for 30 minutes or longer and the situations where I did are examples where I just as easily could've stopped recording for a bit and then started back up shortly thereafter without missing much of a beat. My biggest concern with the R5 personally is the hefty monetary threshold one will have to cross to not only purchase the camera and RF lenses, but also the media cards and readers to be able access the full potential of the camera. That and whatever the rolling shutter might be like. Yeah, this is exactly why I keep thinking back to the R5 more than any other potential motivator. This is some incredibly solid future proofing for most people and while the initial price of entry is a lot steeper than almost every other alternative I'm contemplating as a potential upgrade from my G85, I can't help but feel like I'd probably save money in the long run by just buying the R5 and sticking with it for an extended period of time, rather than buying several cameras all priced around $2000 each every couple of years.

I dunno, I feel like even if Sony redesigned the body, it'll still probably be too small. They seem very gung-ho about making sure that their mirrorless cameras are smaller, unlike Panasonic, Nikon or Canon who are pumping out cameras that are much closer in size to a DSLR. Though I'm no insider or scooper, so I could absolutely be wrong on the matter. I'd be impressed if Sony go for a bigger body. Personally I'm not sure what camera I'll wind up going for, be it Canon or no. Personally the overheating issues with the Canon R5 won't be much issue for my personal workflow most of the time. Been using my Panasonic G85 for over two years now and I've rarely ever done videography work that required the camera to be rolling for longer than ten minutes, much less five. Obviously the biggest holdup for the stuff I've been making lately would be the occasional longer interview, but those aren't particularly common for me. Obviously it seems the R5 is a no-go for anyone specializing in wedding videography or documentary filmmakers with workflows that rely on having the camera rolling non-stop... but I don't think the recording limits get in the way much for narrative filmmakers or filmmakers making music videos. Having been making narrative projects for the better part of a decade now, the only time my co-workers or I have ever recorded multiple takes in a single video file are when we spent several minutes shooting B-roll. And typically I don't imagine most indie-level narrative filmmakers shoot a single take that lasts well over five minutes. Obviously there's exceptions and certain projects where that won't be the case, but it's not the norm.

Really hope Fuji provide a similar update to the X-T4 (and maybe the X-T3 too) for it to be able to output ProRes RAW externally as they just did with the GFX100 sometime in the near future... assuming it's possible, of course. It sounds as though we're still aways off from getting an X-H2 where such a feature would seem immediately obvious, so it'd make sense to capitalize on the hype towards these two cameras in the meantime by providing them a means to output some sort of RAW video codec. Obviously it's not needed, as I've seen plenty of incredible results from the internal 10bit 4:2:0 H.625 codec and the externally outputted 4:2:2 10bit ProRes, but I feel like the presence of a RAW option would help sweeten the pot a bit more for some.

What bugs me especially about that video is that Caleb's actual review seems to be generally pretty positive and IMO fair when considering that a vast majority of his viewers won't need a full-blown CinemaDNG RAW workflow (though Caleb does suggest a rather straightforward and not particularly straining workflow with the RAW files in the review) and will likely be looking for an easier "Quality of Life" camera to use for their work. The issue is that video title is clickbait-y as hell and rejects the finer nuances of the pros and cons of his actual review. As far as I can tell without having had a chance to properly use one myself (yet), the thing with the Sigma FP is that it's basically a super cheap full frame cinema camera brain that also happens to be a very capable stills photography camera, unlike the Blackmagic Pocket 4K and 6K. It wasn't made with the intent of being super convenient across the board and inevitably that's going to turn away a lot of potential customers. We'll have to wait and see if Sigma will aim to make the FP's successor model more convenient in those Quality of Life ways. Also as an aside, it would absolutely behoove Sigma to release Sin-sin on Vimeo and soon. Obviously not many people use it, but it still gets some mileage (Matt Reeves used Vimeo to reveal the new Batsuit in a Costume Test footage earlier this year, for instance) and I think anyone wanting to watch the short with the intent of really examining how capable the FP is as an A-camera for a proper cinema production would want to see the footage in a format that presents as few artifacts caused by the site and compression as possible.

Incredible read. I got a good laugh when the author immediately referenced The 400 Blows and Yamanaka-san confirmed that it had been an influence on Sin-Sin, because that movie was the first thing that came to my mind after watching the short. Also, holy cow this short was originally set to debut at Cannes. I was already gushing over how great the short was compared to other company shorts made to promote a new camera in one of the other FP threads, but that little nugget of info speaks volumes as to how good it is compared to what else we typically see done to promote these types of cameras. Sigma hit a homerun with the cinematic qualities of the FP. While there's definitely a number of things they can do to improve for the next model, I'm very happy to see just how stellar a camera they made with the FP.

Yeah, the only short film that I can think of that even begins to compete with it for me is A Different Beyond that Fujifilm used to promote the video capabilities of the X-T3. And that short had Matthew Libatique as the director! Sigma went all out with this short film. It's a genuinely compelling story being told by a talented filmmaker and cast and crew. The colors coming out of the FP look like something you'd see in a painting. Subtle, but rich. Sigma did seem to confirm that they're working on a new model in that same interview with the site that shall not be named and that they were aiming to continue to improve the autofocus on that model. Pretty vague overall, but it'd be nice if that were to turn out to mean that Sigma might switch over to Phase Detect autofocus at least. Like I said earlier; Sigma has a beast of a camera already with the FP. They could cause quite a storm in the industry if they implement the various key adjustments here and there that customers are suggesting for the successor model.

So to follow up on that whooping 35 minute short film from Sigma, I just found that they'd released a Behind-the-Scenes video highlighting the crew's experience using the FP for the project and what their thoughts on it were! Gotta say, if Sigma continue to listen to the feedback they're getting on this camera and keep that in mind moving forward, I cannot wait to see what Sigma's followup camera to the FP will be like. They've got a monster of a camera on their hands, just iron out some quirks here and there and the next model will be insane.

Man, this new firmware update is MASSIVE. Definitely breaths a ton of new life into the FP and fixes a few of the issues that Caleb mentioned in his video! However, I feel it's worth noting that Sigma confirmed in a new interview with one of the sites that can't be linked here that they were ultimately unable to create a proper LOG/flat profile for the FP due to technical limitations... So apparently that's not coming any time soon for the camera. Not the end of the world, as I'd wager most filmmakers buying this camera are investing in it for the various RAW codecs it can provide internally and externally. Hopefully though the next model in the FP lineup fixes that issue and provides a LOG profile at launch. In cheerier news though, Sigma just released a whopping 35 minute long narrative short film shot entirely on the FP! Unsurprisingly, it looks pretty great.