eatstoomuchjam

"I ruined a lot of shots just because I thought a $10,000 camera setup would transform my bad lighting and framing into something cinematic." Flawless quote. I've used mine as the A camera on 2 short films so far - one for Four Points Film Project and one for a local short film festival called Z Fest. My favorite modes are the 5.8k 2.39 mode that uses full sensor width and the full size 4k mode where I can choose between decent RS and high dynamic range. I also like the 8k mode, but less for the resolution and more for the crop to vary up my prime focal lengths. It also doesn't hurt that the Fuji 110/2 is probably my favorite lens that I ever used on any format/camera. Going in for a any sort of close-up with that lens feels like you just typed a cheat code into your monitor. For most shorts that I shoot, I'm way more likely to just grab the C70 or the K-X. The Fuji can make some amazing images, but I'm always having to think about which mode I'm in and which positives/drawbacks that mode has... plus the big sensor can create some problems. Like, if I put on a fast manual lens with character that I like, I might need to stop it down to f/4 to get enough working DOF to keep the talent in focus while they move (or to have the tip of their nose still in focus while their eyes are sharp) - and by f/4, a lot of the character that I like in that lens vanishes. This objection is reduced a lot with native or EF glass, though, since the eye detect AF is really decent (back to the 110/2, did I mention that I love that lens?). That said, if I'm traveling and can only bring one camera, it's a no-brainer for me. The GFX 100 II is by far the best all-around camera I've ever touched. I've taken it to Turkey and Brazil since getting it and never found myself wishing I had another camera with me. There's a reason that my answer in the "If you could have only one camera..." thread was simply "GFX 100 II." 😁

I'd take the S9 over the fp. I had an fp and an fp-l for a while. I used them on some personal stuff and they were a lot of fun with M mount lenses, but in the end, even using the DPL cages for them, by the time you made them even remotely usable, they were much bigger than something like an EOS R5. Without an external SSD, they're limited to 8-bit codecs - and if I remember right, there's no log profile anyway - just a "flat" one which didn't really seem to add much DR vs neutral. Anyway, 10-bit v-log on the S9 would be just fine and give some flexibility. Also, I'm not sure what RS is like on the S9, but it'd be pretty shocking if it were as bad or worse than on the fp. Also, FWIW, there is no cooling fan on the fp (that I remember), but it does have vents for airflow. Overheating was never a problem with mine. Anyway, I sold my fps because other than "it's a bit smaller," they didn't do anything better than any other camera than I own - and while the smaller argument is valid, it evaporated as soon as I turned them into something that I would actually shoot with. I still hold out hope that they'll come out with a newer one with 10-bit or 12-bit internally, though. 😄

Keep in mind that in 2009 (when the 7d was released), the number of consumer lenses designed for APS-C was even less than now - and there weren't a ton of people adapting vintage Cooke lenses to the 7d. Plus, 15 years ago, sensor technology was not what it is now. Personally, I don't care a lot for Sigma lenses. Every time I put one on my camera, I feel like I'm putting on something designed by a robot - all technical perfection, no soul. But yes, the 18-35 is quite popular. The EF-S 17-55/2.8 is one of the standout lenses for Canon APS-C, but it's one of only a small number. Fast primes? Not many. I HAVE considered picking up the 18-135 USM for a walkaround lens for C70 + Komodo-X since it's decent enough quality and a big zoom range, but while I'd use that for personal stuff, I'd be really unlikely to take it out of the bag when on set. Who is making CCD in the still world nowadays? The sensor options in the still world are about the same as in the video world at this point. Still world has Foveon, but video world has the 17:9 sensors included in many cinema cameras - and most mirrorless cameras (excepting GR1 and Hasselblad medium format) support a video mode which effectively means that most modern still camera sensors are also video sensors... but most dedicated cinema cameras don't feature a still photo mode. The main thing to differentiate a pro DP from an amateur, IMO, is knowing how to light. Choice of cameras like the Alexa tends to be due to a feature set designed for a large crew, reliability, and having the most flexible image to hand off to professional colorists who also spend 80%+ of their time working on footage from the Alexa. This is one of the reasons that a lot of stuff was still being shot on 2.8k Alexa when RED had 4, 5, 6, and 8k sensors available in their cameras. As people here have repeatedly pointed out, a lot of the best DP's aren't making choices for the sharpest possible image - if you want the image to look a little soft, using a Speed Panchro on a 2.8k sensor to upsize to 4k is going to get you there. Will any Internet camera/lens reviewer give a glowing review to that combo? Doubtful. Will an audience watching the film walk out talking about how beautiful the film was? Yup. As a perfect example, I just watched Dune 2 last night since it's finally free on Max. Lots of people have been talking about how beautiful it was. As I watched, some of the scenes were really pretty sharp-looking and they were the ones that seemed mostly CG. When humans were on screen, I repeatedly noticed how unsharp the images were. Googled a bit and found this bit from the DP > "Texturizing the image was the name of the game. The larger ALEXA sensors are so extraordinary that I felt we needed to dirty the image up a bit." Shot on large format sensors, but too much perfection/sharpness felt soulless. Also: > We had a 57 mm LOOK lens with Petzval glass where you can dial in your effect with a third lens ring Dude shot parts of Dune 2 with a $400 Lomography lens. https://shop.lomography.com/us/new-petzval-55-f-1-7-mkii-art-lens And: > Ultimately Fraser and his team decided to use spherical optics and he worked with a diverse range from ARRI Rental including re-housed 1980s Moviecams and re-housed Soviet-era glass provided by IronGlass, along with some lenses from his collection. Dude shot parts of Dune 2 with Helios 44-2 and Jupiter-9 and lenses like that. Can't afford the IronGlass rehoused versions? Go buy 'em for like $200-300 on ebay.

Ha! I never thought of it as a Civic, but that's great. I'm going to remember that. I recently got a Komodo-X and even though any number of specs from the K-X are better on paper than the C70, I fully intend to keep using my C70 for a lot of stuff. Having built-in ND filters and a ton of buttons to assign things to and an articulating internal screen, the C70 is just faster to use. Plus the DR is great and the image looks nice SOOC. I kind of think of it as a camera used by people who want to get it done. It's not flashy - and when you show up on set and tell people you're using a C70, nobody's all excited... but when you show the results, people are happy with them.

It's absolutely really, really average. I'm not sure that even Panasonic would object to that characterization. I'm not sure if the S5 II sensor was new when that camera was released, but even that model is about 1.5 years old. So this is a budget version of a camera that could hardly be considered cutting edge. Almost everything about the S9 screams that a couple of years ago, someone in Panasonic management asked "People really seem to love that X100 V, what's our answer to it?" And there's nothing wrong with any of that. It's kind of fantastic that there's now a $1,500 full-frame camera capable of 6K (including open gate) which includes PDAF. It could be pretty great with Leica M lenses for now. I'm admittedly not super familiar with the options out there for L mount, but one really hopes that it inspires a bunch of decent small f/2 or f/2.8 FF lenses for the system - and not just a kind of shit 26mm f/8 which will probably be a reminder of the Olympus body cap lenses for M4/3 (and not in a good way).

10 minute recording limit in 6K modes, 15 minute recording limit in 4K modes. Completely lacks all-I, ProRes, and external raw. Has PDAF and IBIS. Uses the same sensor as S5 II/S5 IIx. Could be great for casual use. Maybe people will convince Panasonic to add a better codec in a future firmware update.

Also PetaPixel: https://petapixel.com/2024/05/22/panasonic-s9-initial-review-small-pretty-and-confusing/

So-so "review," but it was the first that I saw go live. Size is actually pretty reasonable. It's probably about as small as a usable FF camera is likely to be any time soon.

This is a really weird paragraph. APS-C is popular in the filmmaking community because it's a really close match to the size of Super 35 film. A majority of films made for decades were done on that film and there are bazillions of lenses that support the format. Since the lens is generally much more important than the sensor, S35 continued to be popular in the video world. Also, the real-world differences between FF and APS-C/APS-H are not nearly as big as people make them out to be. One thing that hinders APS-C adoption in the still photo world is the lack of high-quality lenses optimized for the format. As somebody mentioned before, Canon barely make any of them for RF mount and barely made any for EF-S mount. On the other hand, Fuji APS-C bodies are growing in popularity and have a fantastic line-up of great lenses to support them. It has nothing to do with rolling shutter, fwiw. There are full frame cameras with global shutter. Readout speed is only partly based on sensor size.

For a dedicated video camera, the C70 also has great DR, internal ND, and decent audio - and it has RF mount. Put on Canon's focal reducer and your lenses will look almost exactly like they do on FF (though then it will be EF). I'll do a side-by-side with my R5. I never noticed raw video having a lot less DR than stills, but I never did any formal test. I mostly just thought it seemed pretty mediocre/blah for both. 😄 As time goes on, I care less and less about having full frame for video. I bought two dedicated cameras for video work in the last year and they were both RF mount with S35 sensors (though the K-X is more like APS-H than APS-C). I've liked everything I shot with both, except for self-inflicted technical problems (which were no fault of the cameras').

The R5 seems like it would be a really weird choice for the ML people since it already shoots 8k raw - and I haven't noticed the DR in raw on my R5 seeming all that different from the DR on still images. Whatever differences there are, IMO they wouldn't be enough for me to use ML raw and have to convert each clip before importing into Resolve vs just being able to directly open the Canon raw files directly. Better for ML to target bodies like the original R6 which didn't include any sort of raw video - or even better, flesh out support for the M series which is tiny, cheap on the used market due to being a dead system, and has some models that are at least 4k capable. At least, if I were on the project, I'd be more excited to tell people "Now you can shoot 2.5k raw (or 3.2k or whatever SD card slot can support) on a $400 M50" than "Now you can shoot otherer more differenter raw on your $2,300 camera that already has raw."

I'd be glad to add something with my recently-acquired Komodo-X or my C70, but there's no way I'm ever going to refer to my camera as a "beast." I shot a 48hfp thing with the K-X this last weekend and I definitely want to have more excuses to shoot with it and get comfortable before my next planned shoot in June.

You should really post examples of what you mean. I don't think I've noticed a decent IPB codec (like most modern H265) look that much different from an all-i codec for what I'd think of as slow panning. I have noticed differences between cameras with higher and lower RS, even when doing what I'd think of as slow panning, but it's not out of the question that some of that was entirely in my head. Anyway, using vague and heavily subjective terms like "slow" and "looks jumpy" is going to just result in a bunch of people arguing without anybody even really being sure what the other one is arguing about.

I hope there are some pretty decent small/light lenses for L mount. With that (lack of a) handgrip, that thing is an ergonomic nightmare for any sort of handheld shooting with a lens over 300g or so. If that size comparison is accurate, adding a handgrip pretty much puts one in a "just buy an S5II which puts an EVF in the little bit of extra vertical height" category. (If it's decent resolution, it could be a dream camera for M mount lenses)

For me, the "only one camera" answer would be GFX 100 II. But thankfully, I don't need to answer the "only one" question. 😅

The only way to upgrade the GPU on a MBP is to buy a new MBP for another $4k. Not the best plan unless you're independently wealthy - and if so, then you might as well just spend the extra $300 for the better chip now. 😃

The above is exactly why I say there are asterisks and "it depends" in the answer. Will either computer be able to play back 12K braw in Resolve without dropping frames? As long as the storage is fast enough, absolutely. Will it be able to play back in Premiere without dropping frames? 🤷‍♂️ FCP? 🤷‍♂️ As I said before, my M2 Max (the weaker version) w/ 64GB is just able to play back 8K raw from my R5 in Resolve. If I put on a grade where I tweak a few raw options, add FilmConvert Nitrate, and tweak some curves/color warper stuff afterward, I still get 23.98 on it as long as I'm not doing anything else in the background. Canon raw is a nightmare codec in terms of performance. Braw is easier. One other thing to consider is that I'm sure that the local Apple store (if there is one) has some M3 Max models on the showroom floor. If you're nice about it, they might be willing to at least put FCP on one (or let you download Resolve) to load a sample project file and some footage. Since the UM12K has been out for a long time, I'm sure some nice reviewer/youtuber has put some raw files online for you to download. You could just give it a try with one of your sample grades to understand if it performs as needed.

There are a lot of asterisks and "it depends" in any answer to that, but overall, I'd say that if you're spending $4k on a MBP (which updating from the base RAM and SSD would do), if you plan to edit 12k, it might be worth the extra $300 to jump to the bigger chip. It partly depends on how many effects/how much noise reduction, etc. I'd also say that if you're like most people, if you're gonna spend $4k on a laptop, you're going to want it to last for a while. You might factor that in too. Speaking for myself, I bought the lower of the M2 Max chips in my MBP and it's just barely enough to handle 8k Canon raw in Resolve and once I add noise reduction to the clips that need it, export times get pretty slow (like 40 minutes for a 15 minute short). Would having the system be 30% faster help a lot? Not really. 30 minutes to export the clips wouldn't be life changing. You might also consider whether M4 is coming soon - M2 was released in June 2022 and M3 in October 2023. If the M4 is coming, it'll probably have about a 10-15% speed boost over M3 - that or you might be able to get a nice deal on an M3 at that time. Depends on when you're planning to start shooting 12k, I suppose. 😁

From the videos I've seen on Film Look Creator, I think subtractive saturation and split toning are the things that stuck at to me as most interesting - that and I'm going to need to spend a bit of time with their grain generator to see if I like the output.

Slight digression from the topic, but unless you really need the flippy screen, you might consider the RX100 V over the ZV-1. The V is even smaller, but weighs just a hair more (probably due to having more metal and less plastic in the body) (and I think the V is cheaper on the used market). The flippy screen was just about the only difference between the two cameras.

Congratulations on completely missing the point. That was really impressive and you should be proud. The pricing I listed for the 300D was representative of all of the lights that I have. For example, I also got a 600X during their BF sale last year. It was $1,691 and included barndoors + fresnel (and a free MT Pro). Looking at lensrentals.com, it would be $193 for a 7-day rental (light only) and an addition $28 for the fresnel/$24 for the barn doors. I've also used it on 2 shoots since I received it in December. If I use the light on 8-9 shoots over the course of owning it, I will have paid less than renting it, even if I never had a need for barndoors or fresnel. And again, in a few years, I'll also be able to sell it and recoup some of the investment. If I didn't wait for a sale to buy the light, it doesn't really change much - just the number of shoots that are needed before "own" beats "rent." Beyond that, in your example, for the two shoots I've done with the 300D, I'd have spent twice as much as I did and had more light than the shoots needed (if a 300C was enough, I didn't need a 1200D) (also, at least one of the shoots used RGB mode on the 300C which would have made the 1200D a stupid choice for that shoot). So the point, once again, is that if you actually use the gear on any sort of regular basis, it costs less to own it than to rent it - even before you factor in the cost of your time to keep driving to and from the post office or rental house.

That depends. If you use your lights daily, renting is far less affordable. If you'll use them only once every 5 years, renting is far more affordable. Somewhere in-between those two things is an inflection point (which shifts around depending on sales). My Amaran 300C was $455 for Black Friday last year and it came with a free medium-quality light stand. At lensrentals.com, the Amaran 300C goes for $87 for 7 days. So after I've used the light on 6 shoots, I will have saved money vs renting. Since it arrived in December, I've used it for 2. After the shoots ended, I didn't have to put it back in a box and drive it to the post office so it's also saving me some time. If I don't want it in a few years, I'll probably be able to sell it for $100-150. Plus I have that extra light stand going for me. That's pretty nice. 😄

Self-indulgence? 😉 Entertainment is probably an overly-broad category, but that's splitting hairs.

If you just want footage with no commentary, markr041 who is a user here has a YouTube channel and he tends to try a pretty decent number of the cameras that come out. They're usually decently shot and I don't think I've ever even seen one where he talked about the camera (or even showed his face). 😃

One of the things I find hilarious about YouTube is that a lot of the big camera influencers talk about leveling up channels and increasing production value, etc. A lot of the bigger names have between 50-200k subscribers and a lot of them had the advantage of being early to starting camera channels. Newer, theoretically popular people like Cam Mackey have like 65k. Meanwhile, a friend of mine decided to do something with his YouTube channel a couple of years ago after the news did a story about his having purchased the monorail for $1/car from our local zoo when they stopped running it and turning it into a private campsite on some land in Wisconsin. He mostly repurposes junk that he finds at garage sales and thrift stores into things like push-pull carts on railroad tracks and satellite dishes coated in aluminum foil. The cameras he uses are mostly potatoes - like 25-year old camcorders and Hero 3-type stuff. He has a pretty decent natural grasp of editing and story, though, and he's a funny guy. He also would freely admit that he neither knows a lot about cameras nor cares to know any more. Last I checked, he was at about 187k subscribers (including me - I like watching his stuff). So if the goal is just to grow a YouTube channel, the quality of the camera is probably the least important bit. Making half of your video be slow motion slideshow garbage so that you can put "cinematic" in the title doesn't really get views if the rest of the content is garbage. I buy too much gear for my own mediocre talent, but that's partly just because I want it and after a lot of years, I can almost always find something to trade in to make stuff more affordable. I have no illusions that buying a Komodo-X will substantially improve anything I do, but I might do it anyway. If I get it, I'll probably like it a lot for a while and then after a couple of years, I'll probably trade it in toward something else. Anyway, another thing to remember with these YouTubers that are in the business of making day 1 review commercials for various channels - when they're showing "what this camera can do," go watch their older stuff with a camera from last year. Most of the time, it looks almost exactly like whatever they're doing with the new camera because they're really not that different. One of the most laughable things that people say on various camera forums or YT comments is "I can't wait for (creator name here) to get it so we can see what that camera can really do." Wanna know what that camera will look at when your favorite creator gets it? Go watch the review they did of the camera before it. It'll look pretty much like that.