MrSMW

Video only for me with the S5ii.

AFC 1 area + eye face body I use it to acquire focus and usually just let it do it's thing. If I feel the scene is a bit confusing or there's any danger of it losing focus, I'll flick the lens to manual focus. If it's a long form thing like a static set up for a ceremony, manual focus obviously. Entrances, exits etc, AF.

Could be... I think my S1H had better IBIS than my OG S5, but the S5ii has better IBIS than the S1H...which is to be expected because it's a much more recent camera. OM-1 was really good...

I use my S5ii's with default settings without CAF, but with face & eye switched on. Zero AF issues and I rely on my AF a lot of the time.

OK and agree, but I am really referring to Canon 14 bit camera vs Sony 14 bit camera vs Nikon 14 bit camera vs Lumix 14 bit camera, same or equivalent lenses, focal lengths, sensor sizes et al, ie, all things being as 'equal' as they can be, including same light, same circumstances. Ie, is then colour science an 'issue' or subject to the most minor of WB and hue shifts in camera, the differences would be so minuscule it's not a thing?

High, medium, low, not at all? SOOC. Surely in this day and age, not only can we make a couple of micro adjustments in camera, but also in post. There seems to be so much debate whether Nikon is better than Canon or Sony is better than Nikon or whoever etc... Obviously, some 'tests' are highly skewed with some 'testers' pushing the files that are not their chosen system in the wrong direction (yes really, sometimes The Internet lies!) but just how relevant is it in 2024 with the latest cameras? Personally, I rank it as being exceedingly low and not a deciding factor. That is not to say I do not care about colour because I do, but I personally do not see what a camera is producing SOOC being the be all and end all of criteria and unless I am totally wrong, tweaks both in camera and after the fact can easily be made. It's not my specialist subject, just curious...

And speaking of having the gear, wedding a couple of weeks ago, band turns up and sets up. I ask them if I was correct in observing they did not bring any lighting. At all. And it's a pretty dark room with near zero lighting and what there is is hardly 'disco' lighting. They confirmed I was indeed right and with these "overseas gigs we don't have enough room in the van for lighting". OK. You told the couple this? Well, no... Well luckily for me, I have 2 bigger plugin lights on tall stands and 2 smaller lights with 'disco light' settings and so for the duration of me being there, ie, the first set, there was lighting. After their first set, I cleared up and cleared out. What they did after that, I have no idea, but it probably wasn't good...

Yep, just one of those days when it went a bit tits up for a while and would indeed have been unthinkable without options. But for 5 minutes, I had lost both my principal video unit AND my sole photo unit. Resolved it pretty quickly and making a few adjustments going forward, mainly in how those units are attached to my person…which was the weak link here. Tried a new carrying set up and it didn’t work and the only way to discover that was on a real job. Hey ho, no matter where you are at, there are always lessons to be learned!

Carnage on Shoot 01 Second Rode WG2 was DOA At least I knew about this in advance… Within the space of 10 mins, damaged my video workhorse Sigma 28-70 and totally destroyed my stills Tamron 28-75, plus A7 baseplate. Managed to soldier on with the Sigma for video but could have switched to a 20-60 but it’s going to need to go into repair ASAP. Just had to order a new Tamron though and then see if this one can be fixed as the lens came clean off the mount. Had to switch early to the 10-40 which is a bit wider than I’d have liked but hey ho, nothing like a baptism of fire. The damage was all caused by the Cotton Carrier system and first thing when I get back will be switching back to my previous twin set up of harness plus Spider Holster. The harness system means you cannot drop a camera. The Spider Holster takes the weight off your shoulders/back and on to your hips and stops the cameras swinging around as they tend to with a harness. Lessons learned 🤑 Otherwise GREAT set up.

I would imagine. There is a certain quality to size and below a certain size (and weight even) it can become an issue. It’s more a size thing for me these days over actual weight as in I’d always pick the smaller heavier set up over the larger lighter one. Love the A7RV + Tamron 28-75 for this very reason. Loved it right up to the point where mid shoot yesterday, I smashed the mount off it and bent the baseplate on it’s very first outing 🤪 Back to Spider Holster over Cotton Carrier because one of them is secure and the other ‘a bit shite’.

I don’t think that for 99% of us, 99% of the time, we would know what anything has been shot on without being told. And 99.9% could not care less. The movie and TV industry has been built on big cameras, initially because they just had to be a certain size. Today, they do not and are arguably the least important part of the entire puzzle. And that image of big camera = professional camera filters all the way down to us lowly wedding hacks. Well, the lower down the food chain, the less important a ‘Big Camera’ is, but it wasn’t until the last decade really that even at weddings, videographers did not have bigger shoulder mounted cameras. In the movie industry though, unless you are a Greig Fraser and can ‘get away’ with using FX3’s, the issue is mainly how you would be perceived. OK, he wasn’t using $250 kit lenses but you know what I mean. But it’s changing isn’t it and even larger studios using smaller more ‘regular’ cameras is becoming more common. I think there is still a ton of snobbery though of cameras. But back to the S1H specifically, mine is now on borrowed time… Despite it having better image quality than my S5ii’s, I turned it from it’s static role of the last year or so, back into my primary run & gun unit for the first part of a 2 day job, yesterday. This morning, first thing I did was put it back into the static role and reset one of my S5ii’s into the run & gun role. Why? It’s just too slow compared with the S5ii and ultimate image quality aside, some things are more important and the top of that list is getting the shot. If I was shooting a movie though, S1H hands down.

It isn’t, but to be expected as it’s a previous gen system. And that of the current S5ii/x just received a firmware upgrade making it better still. Zero issues for me with that of the S5ii and IBIS is VERY important to me, especially now that I have ditched the hated gimbal forever 😉

Too many compromises… Single card slot, rear screen which I use 100% of the time, not even close, some other stuff I forget. On balance, for not that much more money, it’s a hell of a lot more camera. For pro work. Which is exactly why I have stuck with Lumix for video and 3 of my 4 cameras are Panasonic. I looked really hard at much cheaper FX30’s and they would have been perfect for my needs and if starting from scratch, would probably go that route, but no reasons I can think of to exchange S5ii’s for them. I’m still on the fence whether to replace my S1H with a third S5ii or the S9…but it will be one or the other within the next few weeks. Which is also what I almost did having used a pair of them for a season 2 years ago. Fantastic image quality for stills and actually extremely good for video, but with some compromises. The only thing that put me off and sent me to the Sony A7RV was lenses. The combos available for my needs are just too big and heavy and I tried them all! My A7RV with baseplate and 28-75 for instance weighs 1.35kg in the hand and even with the 70-180, only about 1.5kg. Previously, my equivalent, slower, less capable, L Mount Mount set up, weighed in at 2.8kg, so almost double! I’ve only been using the new set up for a couple of days but it’s been a HUGE step up in all kinds of ways; weight, ergos, speed etc, ie, everything I wanted it to be. Pure video needs though? Lumix. Easily. Pure stills, Sony. Hybrid, Lumix. Lumix for me is now one camera (S2H or S2R) plus one lens (a fast compact 50-100 zoom) away from being the absolute for me, but it’s just the ‘anything over 70mm’ that makes it not work for me. So for now at least, happy to have a 75% split in terms of cameras for video from within L Mount and 25% from Sony for stills. At some point in the future, I do hope L Mount can offer me everything I would like so everything is within one system, but my current one just works so I can wait. And if it does not happen, makes no difference to me!

Well I was also ‘waiting’ on it and had already dismissed the Leica SL3, simply on cost. The ‘S2R’ is likely to be the same, or even better and half the price, but that is just speculation on my part. Also considered the GFX100s but the lens options do not exist for me. So Sony A7RV it was. And is. Early days and I didn’t really want to go Sony because…well, the photo snob in me says they have near zero heritage in making photography cameras and whilst that is true, it kept coming back to one single factor and that is who makes the smallest and best 60mp+ camera? The answer is smallest, Sigma FP-L, but so much missing for me, as much as I wanted to, I just could not. But best? The A7RV is just a chunky little compact, class leading, highly capable stills camera with stellar AF. Superb range of compact and affordable lenses that cover all the focal lengths that no other lens manufacturer does (at this size and weight) and relatively OK prices, it just became that ‘no-brainer’ they talk about. With a trio of primes from Tamron; 20-40, 28-75 and 70-180, so far, I have zero criticisms. But yeah Panny, where is that S1R’2’?!

Sigma FP-L has a ‘zoom’ function. It just crops on as they all do though? Leica Q3 has ‘crop modes’ as do quite a few other FF sensor cameras. I have my new (used) A7RV set up to shoot 3 different options: C1 for compressed full 61mp raw C2 for 26mp medium raw C3 APSC crop which is also 26mp, but tighter framing than the full frame 26mp medium raw of C2. All working with the Tamron 28-75 gives me actual working ranges of 28-75 and approx 40-110. I have think there is a clear zoom option but not looked at it.

An argument can be made either way but personally, if I only shot stills and was only ever going to shoot stills, I’d get one of the latest Hassleblads.

Because the D850 is a tank and just does the business 🦾 Surely used DSLR lenses are much cheaper? I don’t really know and personally I would not go back to DSLR now.

All the more reasons why anybody starting out in photography today should skip over the current gen mirrorless, and just get a solid DSLR such as a Canon 6D or Nikon D750 for a few hundred dollars plus a few bargain priced DSLR lenses. For photo, 100% The Nikon D850 is arguably the finest wedding photographers camera, ever made. Mirrorless is of course, just ‘sexier’ to the kids…

That was what I loved about the Sigma Contemporary primes. I think there is a bit of magic shooting them wide open, especially the 65mm f2. Maybe I should AI my Sigma 28-70mm f2.8 by one stop... I reckon though that it would easily achieve the shallower DOF, but the 'magic' part you can't quite define will be missing? A bit like film vs digital. I'd rather shoot with digital for all kinds of reasons, costs being the chief one, but film still has a certain look that digital cannot replicate. With digital and AI, it's almost too clinical and perfect and that's what it's good at, but being 'perfect' is not necessarily art/appealing...which is why I guess some folks like using $5 lenses on $5k cameras.

Well I own precisely zero fast lenses as in primes such as 1.4 or 1.8’s and moved exclusively to zooms recently. I prefer primes, but the reality for my work, is I tried juggling them for far too long but the simple reality was a typical zoom covers at least 3 prime focal lengths with simple rotations. OK, other than a few exotics such as Canon’s RF 28-70 f2 monster, faster than f2.8 zooms do not exist and I am over using any lens above 1kg and most of my zooms are ball park 500g or under. AI could certainly adjust DOF to be even shallower, but you know what? I am also over ultra shallow DOF and f2.8 is just fine thanks!

Had one, sold it in favour of something faster. Sold the something faster and bought a pair of used 20-60’s to be my video workhorses. The reality is I either work in good light and don’t use these things any faster than f5.6, or I light the scene, so in either scenario, plenty fast enough for me. Also, 20mm is more than wide enough as is 60mm long enough because in my bag, is a 70-200 f4 for those scenarios when 60 really is not enough reach. They are really good ‘kit’ lenses. I wish they were constant aperture but then they’d be bigger, heavier and much more expensive.

Also, certain lenses with the native zooms having the best Af performance. Sigma etc lenses less so… Best practice for me with that system was to use Af to acquire focus and then flip to manual on the lens. These cameras are utter trash for tracking forward motion a lot of the time. Closing down the aperture (such as shooting f8 instead of f2.8 for instance) helps as doing being in S35 mode which offers better Af than full frame modes. Jeez, it’s coming back to me now how much pissing about there was with the OG S5 😂

S5 Af was nowhere near the best at the time, even less so now and was never reliable. Ditto S1/S1R/S1H. Good enough in most scenarios yes, but never reliable. I cannot remember my settings now but they were based on a lot of research, trial and error and combos of the type of Af area selected, such as oval, wide etc and then +/- the stickiness etc. S5ii much better being PDAF and I know you mentioned cost, but if you can at any time move to a user one, it’s well worth it.

5ii owner more than up for it 🫡

Still gets me every time… I’m always thinking, “can you not see there’s a shotgun mic on the top of my camera?” (although I swapped my dead cat for a live foam), but apparently not! Maybe I need to rig it out over my shoulder and employ someone to walk around with a boom mic overhead? I’d look properly pro then.