I took a cinema camera on holiday, and it changed everything

[kye]

Not clickbait, despite sounding like it.   I'd say that it threw a spanner in the works, but it was more like a hand-grenade.

I went to South Korea on holiday, and despite having a mostly-sorted setup based on GX85, I took the BMMCC and ended up shooting almost the whole trip on it.

The rig

The rig consists of:

• OG BMMCC - the 1080p one from almost a decade ago
• 12-35mm F2.8 lens
• IR/UV cut filter
• cheap vND filter (tried to buy a new one there but retail shops didn't stock what I wanted)
• Ikan 3.5" monitor
• Smallrig monitor mount (tilts forwards)
• curly HDMI cable from amazon (really tidies the rig up)
• 3 x LP-E6 batteries (two are older Wasabi ones and one was genuine a Canon one I bought there)
• Peak Design arca-swiss (mounted on the bottom)
• random wrist strap (looped through the arca-swiss plate
• Sandisk 128Gb SD card

This ended up being a killer setup.  A few highlights of the rigs performance are...

Professional equipment
The BMMCC is a cinema camera with fans and designed to shoot in harsh environments.  The 12-35 is a professional lens.  No BS overheating snowflake influencer crap here.  This gave me confidence to use it in (light) rain, heavy humidity and serious sweatiness, and basically to not baby it.

Fixed aperture zoom lens
When setting up for a shot the vND setting from the last shot is probably in the ballpark for this current shot, even when going straight from a one end of the zoom range to the other.

Flexible zoom range
The zoom range was from 30mm to about 100mm.  Sometimes it wasn't quite as wide as I'd have liked, but it suited the environment as Seoul, with a population of around 10M people, is one of the worlds megacities and is seriously compact, so most compositions would simply contain too much stuff if they had a wider FOV.  You always miss shots when travelling, but I felt like I didn't miss that many.

OIS on a cinema camera, even at the wide end
Not a lot of OIS options for 12mm lenses outside of zoom lenses.

Light weight
This is a full cinema camera rig with 12 items, and yet weighs about 850g / 1.9lb.  My GH5 weighs 750g / 1.65lb with battery and SD card, BUT NO LENS.

Dynamic range
No choosing between the sky or shadows.  When shooting uncontrolled situations like this you often see things in post that you didn't see while you were shooting, so the flexibility is super-useful.

Ok, so that's all lovely and all, but what was so transformative about it?  These are things you could probably work out from the specs...

 

Grenade #1: Shooting slowly is (mostly) shooting honestly.

It's a cinema camera, so it's slow as f to shoot with.  Yes, I know that practice makes you faster, but my phone will expose and focus in the blink of an eye, so comparatively it's far slower.  

So, you see a composition and you stand in the right place.  Then you adjust the monitor angle if not shooting from the hip (as I prefer).  Then you adjust the ND to expose.  Then you adjust the zoom for the composition.  Then you adjust the focus.  With this kind of setup you have to rely on peaking, so you adjust it back and forth to see how much peaking is the maximum, then zero in on that.  Then you hit record.

This means several things:

• You are immediately obvious when you stop and start fiddling with a camera in public.  There's no hiding.  People aren't stupid, especially these days.
• You cannot be this obvious without getting comfortable with it.  If you don't learn to be comfortable then you'll mentally implode before getting any shots, forcing you to relax and just play that role.
• By the time that you actually hit record, most of the people who were staring at you will have gotten bored and gone back to what they were doing.  They don't know you hit record, so the shot will contain people who aren't suddenly paying attention to you.

This was a revelation for me because it forces a different way of shooting.

When you have a fast camera, you can act like a street photographer.  You watch the people, you see something about to happen, you quickly point the camera, and capture THE DECISIVE MOMENT.  This means you are shooting specific people doing specific things.  Good freaking luck doing that with a fully-manual cine camera.

When you have a slow camera, you probably can't anticipate moments far enough in advance to be ready in time, so you think differently.  You find a composition and shoot it, and anonymous people drift in and out of frame in ways you didn't specifically anticipate.  Sure, you can frame up a background and then wait for people to walk through it, and you could even see someone interesting a few hundred meters away and be ready when they walk past, but it's still a good distance from seeing something 2s before it happens and grabbing it.

This has a massive caveat though.  It's not a good way to shoot people you know, unless you're directing them or they're basically stationary.

The way I've come to understand the difference between cinema cameras and video cameras is that video cameras are designed to capture the world as it happens, and cinema cameras expect the world to bend around them.  There's lots of overlap now with that line blurring, but the concept is still a useful one, and the cameras with the best image quality still tend to be very self-centred.

 

Grendade #2: Fixed WB is awesome.

I used to shoot auto-WB because I used to think that you wanted 'correct' WB.  This mostly works, but leaves you with tiny WB 'errors' that change during the shot.  I used to think that the alternative was a fixed WB that would either be correct (if you took a manual grey-card reading at every location or whenever the lighting changed) or you'd use a fixed WB and then have to change it in post.

This is probably still true if you're doing something where the WB has to be 'correct', but the only situations I can think of where this would apply is for professional work.

I shot the whole trip on 5600K.

So, why wasn't this a 'problem' creating shots with 'wrong' WB?

Well, shots with warm light sources look warm:

Shots with cool light sources (like a blue sky) look cool:

Shots taken on a 'grey old day' look grey:

... and light sources that aren't on the warm/cool line will show as being coloured but don't look wrong - they just sort of look like that's what they looked like:

and sometimes can even look beautiful:

More to come, too many images to attach!

[kye]

Grenade #3: Restricted zoom range and cropped monitoring give scale to compositions.

This is a combo one.

After decades of shooting travel and street, I compose on instinct and if I wanted to override that, I have to concentrate.  Often while shooting my whole capacity is being used elsewhere, so I get what I compose on auto-pilot, but the gotcha for these is that I compose using the monitor, which is normally 16:9.

If you later want to crop then subjects are too tall in the frame, so it doesn't work.

Cameras often have completely rubbish crop lines for their display - some are barely visible - let alone strong enough to get my autopilot to use them for compositions.  The BMMCC is different - the frame guides are 100% opacity black bars.  This is perfect because that real estate can still be used to display settings, but isn't displaying misleading parts of the frame.

So, this part encourages me to not make the subjects too big in the frame, but the 100mm limit of the 12-35mm lens goes even further - it makes far away subjects even smaller in the frame.

What I find is that is that this can really give a sense of scale to the world - we tend to measure everything against the size of humans after all.  I've seen people talk about how the greats of cinematography aren't afraid to make the humans small in the frame and how this is something less awesome people don't do - this combo helps!

This point might be a little lost if you're reading this on your phone instead of on a 70" TV like you should be doing, and movement also helps because with most of these shots the composition is static so the buildings are motionless and the movement of the people really helps them to stand out in the frame.

[kye]

Grenade #4: Low light cameras and lenses aren't strictly needed.

This was a surprise, but ISO 800 and an F2.8 lens is (almost) all you need, even for low-light situations.

The BMMCC has an ISO 1600 mode, but I did a side-by-side and the 1600 shot was still noisier than the 800 shot even after it had been darkened by a stop in post to match exposure.  The BMMCC is a pretty noisy camera though, and I did ETTR whenever I could.

For the really low-light situations I ended up taking off the vND, which is still something like 1-stop when at its lightest setting, but even that wasn't needed for most situations.

The secret to making this combo work is to actually have blacks in the frame.  This seems to be something that only professionals do now, amateurs all have milky shadows for some unknown reason - perhaps they think they're emulating film when in fact film would crush your blacks faster than the YT comments section will crush your dreams.

These are all shot at ISO 800, with me cheating an extra stop by going to a 360 shutter.  After doing that cheat, I ended up dropping exposure significantly in post on most shots, so I probably didn't need to cheat that much:

These are also shot at ISO 800, but might have been with the 50mm F1.2 prime I also took with me, and were tripod shots:

(These last two shots also had a WB change in post to get the cool tones, but most of the other shots I've posted had no WB changes in post at all)

I am contemplating an 85mm F1.4 prime to give extra reach for very low-light situations but it's a pretty speciality thing.

I also took with me the 7.5mm F2, 17mm F1.4 and 50mm F1.2 primes.  The reason I took these is specifically for very low-light situations like going to a look-out at night and wanting to capture the city lights cleanly and get a little bit of exposure on the things they're illuminating rather than simply getting a black frame with individual pixels lit up by the lights directly.

Having a dual-ISO camera would really simplify this, because if the second native ISO was 2.5 or 3 stops above then the F2.8 lens would turn the T2.8 exposure into a T1.0 or T1.2 exposure which makes a big difference into reaching into the blackness.

Here's a table of common scenarios, where ISO 800 at T2.8 and 1/50 shutter speed = exposure value of 5.5:

As you can see, lots of night situations you'd find yourself in are brighter than the 5.5 with 6 and 7 being common night situations.

The other thing to take into account is that 5.5EV is probably better than most of us can see at night with our eyes, so if it's too dark to film, you might not be inclined to be there in the first place (unless you enjoy walking down dark alleyways in foreign cities at night with expensive camera gear).

[bjohn]

Nice!

Did you keep the ISO at 800 (or 400) all the time? For daylight 800 seems to be the best choice as it gives the best highlight protection; darker shots work best at ISO 400 (counterintuitively) because you get less noise in the shadows, but if you're crushing the blacks anyway you might as well just keep it at 800 all the time.

Whoops, we were posting at the same time; you just answered my question in your post above!

[kye]

Grenade #5: OIS with a good implementation is mostly good enough.

I'm used to IBIS and more recently Dual-IS (which is IBIS and OIS combined) and had previously shot with OIS-only and disregarded it because it doesn't stabilise roll.  I'm also used to the 'tripod mode' on the GH5 which maintains a motionless frame with the IBIS like it's locked-off, which I missed on the GX85 which gives a bit of a floaty image.

The BMMCC maintains a very steady frame with the OIS, but doesn't fight you if you want to move the frame, so it creates still compositions but also allows smooth movement.

I can still tell from the footage when I was tired or low in blood-sugar or just generally struggling - it was over 30C / 86F and 70% humidity, so pretty demanding on the arms to hold a very small and lightweight camera perfectly still for hours and hours.  

To counter the roll motion, I took to using my left hand to 'cup' the camera and lens and put my thumb up onto the side of the monitor, which helped stabilise any roll motion / jitters.  It didn't work perfectly, as in this orientation any rotation of my forearm translates to roll motion in the camera, but for the most part the jitters are small enough that using stabilisation in post can clean them up almost perfectly.  There was still a bit of sudden-blur on the odd frame here or there where there was motion-blur while the shutter was open, but considering the subject matter is a large city with the grunge and grit as well as the glitz and glamour, it's aesthetically appropriate.

[kye]

Grenade #6: I worked out how to sharpen and process the footage.

Prior to the BMMCC, I've previously only shot with cameras that sharpened (over sharpened) their footage.  This is the GF3, 700D, XC10, GH5, and GX85.  I got good at blurring the footage to get a nice level of sharpness (a level of sharpness that only the pros seem to be able to achieve - amateurs seem to want to slice everyones eyeballs - maybe it's self-loathing over not being skilled at using their NLE?) but I could never work out how to sharpen up RAW footage and footage from the OG BMMCC and BMPCC.

In retrospect I really don't know why I couldn't do this, and it sort of seems silly now, but it was a barrier to my ability to do what I wanted with the footage.  
(It's not that I wanted to over-sharpen the footage, but in order to grade optimally you need to be able to go too far in order to choose the right amount of something.)

Push push push....

More more more!!

High-end smartphone look achieved!!

[kye]

That's all I can think of for the moment, and I'll take a long time for me to digest what I do with this info.

One final observation was how hot the camera got.

For the unfamiliar, the BMMCC has huge grills on each side for the integrated fan (and as one of the smallest cameras on the market it really shows there's no excuses) and for those who haven't experienced it - it pumps out hot air the whole time!

I previously mentioned that the camera was exposed to sweaty conditions, which was absolutely true (I was drenched with sweat basically the whole time I was outside) but part of that was that the camera was this little hand-warmer blowing hotter than normal air on my hands.

This really gave me an appreciation of how serious the challenge of camera thermal management is.  I'd suggest that technology has likely gotten better since they made this camera, but the amount of data processing has also gone up, so perhaps that evens it out - I don't know.

It made me appreciate that I didn't need to worry about other cameras that may well have overheated in these conditions.  

The heat this gives off, combined with the deep shadows and moody images from shooting in the rain, really made me think this would be a great camera to shoot with in winter.  Not only would the images be moody and cinematic, but it would keep your hands warm!

[Clark Nikolai]

These are really good. I especially like the ones of the streets at night. The light is where the subject is so it's okay if the rest is too dark to see.

I know what you mean about things taking time to set up with a cinema camera. I've been working on a project for over a year now that's mostly tripod shots of things in the city. People do ignore you after awhile. Some come over to chat about cameras. Very few take issue with it. I guess I look like some photography hobbyist out getting shots. In a tourist and film school town like Vancouver, there are so many people taking pictures and shooting their school projects that it's just more of the same.

I also learned a trick to not look at what you're shooting. Set it up on a tripod, point it where you want, frame, focus and start rolling but then look away or down at your phone and check your emails or something. Then let the action happen in the frame. If someone looks over at you it looks like you're not rolling because your attention is not where the lens is pointing.

I also set it at the native ISO and native colour temperature and leave it there. Mostly have a 180º shutter (but occasionally go longer for more light.) Shooting raw it is the best way to go. In post you can do pretty much anything then.

Recently I've been letting interior light stay a bit warm and exterior daytime light be bluish. I think it's better than correcting things to be always white. Gives more mood and a sense of the light at the time and place.

 

[Emanuel]

@kye You should dedicate yourself to professional filmmaking, you're a way ahead of lots of them, really :- )

[kye]

9 hours ago, Clark Nikolai said:

These are really good. I especially like the ones of the streets at night. The light is where the subject is so it's okay if the rest is too dark to see.

I know what you mean about things taking time to set up with a cinema camera. I've been working on a project for over a year now that's mostly tripod shots of things in the city. People do ignore you after awhile. Some come over to chat about cameras. Very few take issue with it. I guess I look like some photography hobbyist out getting shots. In a tourist and film school town like Vancouver, there are so many people taking pictures and shooting their school projects that it's just more of the same.

I also learned a trick to not look at what you're shooting. Set it up on a tripod, point it where you want, frame, focus and start rolling but then look away or down at your phone and check your emails or something. Then let the action happen in the frame. If someone looks over at you it looks like you're not rolling because your attention is not where the lens is pointing.

I also set it at the native ISO and native colour temperature and leave it there. Mostly have a 180º shutter (but occasionally go longer for more light.) Shooting raw it is the best way to go. In post you can do pretty much anything then.

Recently I've been letting interior light stay a bit warm and exterior daytime light be bluish. I think it's better than correcting things to be always white. Gives more mood and a sense of the light at the time and place.

Thanks! 🙂

The not-looking trick is definitely a good one.  With hand-held stuff if someone was close by when I hit stop, I'd look up but look past them.  It's an old trick but it makes people think you were shooting something behind them rather than them.  I'd also just avoid pointing a camera directly at someone and framing up, so if someone happened to be quite close to me I'd just wait until they'd passed and then frame up.  I also carried the camera around pointing straight down, which was comfortable to do but also clearly shows you're not trying to secretly film people.

I'll admit I did sneak the odd shot here or there.  These two for example were me filming people in-particular:

I was mostly attracted to these people because they were smoking, which can look really cool on video if the lighting is right.

In exploring the backstreets and laneways I came upon a laneway with about two dozen people smoking in it.  It was a pretty long lane so far away from the main streets around it.  It also had a clock on the wall, which I took a shot of because I thought it was funny to have a clock on the outside of a building, but I think it must have been where workers go to smoke and the clock put there by management to remind them not to take too long.

[kye]

8 hours ago, Emanuel said:

@kye You should dedicate yourself to professional filmmaking, you're a way ahead of lots of them, really :- )

Thanks!

But realistically, what matters in film-making is story.  If pretty visuals were all that mattered then all the mindless and forgettable action films would be winning oscars and changing the world..

[zlfan]

entry level pro dps spend of most of their time on headshots etc to make ends meet. they are not as good as advanced amateurs like kye. top pro dps have the time and the experience and the tools/toys to do more advanced experiments, so that they gain some knowledge on something that are not normally available to the public, like cooke or leica or arri signature lenses or exotic anamorphic lenses on Alexa 35, etc. 

[zlfan]

this post makes me to want to have a bmmcc v2. I hope v2 has the gyro info so gyro flow can be used for stabilization. 

[Clark Nikolai]

On 8/31/2024 at 7:46 PM, kye said:

Thanks!

But realistically, what matters in film-making is story.  If pretty visuals were all that mattered then all the mindless and forgettable action films would be winning oscars and changing the world..

You could collaborate with someone who's good at storytelling. Team up with a writer, they do the story, you do the camera work.

Just sayin'...

[MrSMW]

On 8/31/2024 at 6:50 PM, Clark Nikolai said:

I also learned a trick to not look at what you're shooting.

As a low-key hybrid wedding shooter, that’s a mainstay for me as folks act differently if they become aware the focus is on them.

Sometimes they do something that works as part of the whole, but mostly I just want to observe the candid.

Top down, rear LCD, limited or zero eye contact. Not because I’m a social freak or wannabe hipster, but because it gets the result I want.

I tried the viewfinder the other day and can’t go back now despite having cut my teeth back in the day as a film photographer in the 90’s and early 2000’s.

[kye]

Update..

I've booked another trip for next year, and have been doing the post-trip analysis and working out what I'll do for next time.

We all know the BMMCC sits in a very narrow niche of size, performance, and features, so I won't rehash that, but I figured my analysis on alternatives might be useful to anyone else still interested in this camera.

Options

Keep the same setup as I used previously

• Big camera: BMMCC with 12-35mm F2.8
• Small tourist camera: GX85 with 14-140mm
• Tiny stealth camera: GX85 with 14/2.5
• Extreme low light: GX85 with 7.5/2 + 17/1.4 + 50/1.2
• Buy: nothing
• Pros: no cost, known setup
• Cons:
  • no AF - manually focusing took time but wasn't a huge deal
  • some moire - only a few shots had moire
  • dim monitor - only a problem when in bright sunlight
  • limited low-light when hand-holding - native ISO with 12-35/2.8 lens is 'enough' for ok lit places but not for dim places, and my fast primes don't have OIS so aren't usable with a tiny hand-held rig
  • limited focal range when on tripod in low-light - I like to shoot little scenes at night from out the hotel window and the 50mm is the longest fast lens
  • roll not stabilised - OIS can't stabilise roll so footage does have roll jitters from hand-holding in a smallish percentage of the shots

Same setup but minor upgrades

• Buy a brighter monitor to get visible screen in bright conditions
• Buy OLPF to ensure no moire
• Buy 85mm F1.4 to get fast tele for low-light

Use my OG BMPCC

As cool as the OG BMPCC is, is still suffers from most of the issues of the BMMCC as well as introducing new ones.  The monitor doesn't articulate at all, is useless in almost all daylight situations, and is the wrong polarisation for my sunglasses so is black, so I'd still need an external monitor and therefore I'd need a rig for it to protect the notoriously fragile tiny-HDMI connector on the side.  It also needs an external power solution.  All to give me one of the slowest AF mechanisms ever invented.

Use the GX85 only

This really simplifies the setup with one camera, but severely limits the dynamic range.  This is important for any time the sun is low, which is a lot when you're on holiday, but is also (surprisingly) more of a problem at night when you want to be able to see the people walking in the streets but don't want to blow out the people inside the shops and bars and restaurants eating etc.

I've done a bunch of side-by-side tests recently and have (finally) managed to get the GX85 files to have some of the mojo of the BMMCC, so I'm less obsessed with the filmic and organic look of the BMMCC that I was.  It's really about DR, which just isn't enough to consider this a good alternative to the BMMCC, and is a recurring weakness for other options.

Use my GH5 as the main camera

• DR is still poor compared to BMMCC (almost two stops less?)
• Flippy screen is a PITA because to tilt it (I like to shoot from the hip and high angles) you have to flip it out to the side first
• AF is solved (I only use AF-S so no worries there)
• Moire is solved
• Dim monitor is solved
• Low-light when hand-holding is solved - I can use the 12-35/2.8 with a higher ISO or use the primes with IBIS
• Focal range when on tripod in low-light is partly solved - I can use the 14-140mm F3.5-5.6 with higher ISOs
• Roll stabilisation is also solved by IBIS

Buy GH5ii

Same as above, but DR is only around one stop less and instead of being free it's AUD1500.  Not worth it compared to other options.

Buy BMMSC 4K G2

Same as current BMMCC setup, but..

• No AF without having that stupid handle that's larger than the entire rest of the rig
• Moire is fixed
• Dim monitor still an issue
• Low-light when hand-holding is fixed due to dual-ISO (400 and 3200) which means 12-35mm f2.8 lens on this becomes equivalent of a T1.4 lens on BMMCC
• Focal range when on tripod in low-light is also partially fixed as 14-140mm F3.5-5.6 becomes equivalent to T1.8-2.8 on BMMCC
• Roll still not stabilised
• Additional issues including: Large file sizes from 4K BRAW, must buy SSD, must buy mount and cable protectors for SSD, cost around AUD1500 plus SSD plus cage

Buy GH6

• DR is better to BMMCC
• AF is fixed
• Moire is fixed
• Dim monitor is fixed
• Low-light when hand-holding is fixed - native ISO for V-Log in DR Boost mode is ISO 2000(!)
• Focal range when on tripod in low-light is also fixed by high native ISO 2000 so the 14-140mm lens is good enough
• Low light becomes so good that I don't even need to take the fast primes on the trip (I'd still take the 14/2.5 pancake lens for use with the GX85)
• Roll is stabilised
• High-DR scenes had streaking issues that I'm pretty sure I'd encounter, considering I am shooting scenes where I am simultaneously clipping the white and black points of the BMMCC which has 11.2/12.5 stops of DR
• AUD2500+(!!)

Buy GH7

This fixes all the issues with the BMMCC.

• DR is much better than the BMMCC
• AF is PDAF
• Moire is fixed
• Dim monitor is fixed 
• Low-light when hand-holding and focal range when on tripod in low-light are both fixed, and I don't need to bring the fast primes
• Roll is stabilised by IBIS

Also doesn't have the issues that other options have:

• Screen tilts as well as flips
• Can record internal Prores (not Prores RAW, although it does that too) at various resolutions (down to 1080p) and in various flavours
• No streaking or image issues

The only downside is the cost - AUD3400 or so currently.

Non-MFT cameras

This is pretty simple, there are no good options currently available that are equivalent prices.
Any non-MFT option currently suffers from at least one of the following issues:

• Variable aperture 10x zoom lens options don't exist or are large or heavy or both
• Faster 3x zoom lenses are typically large / heavy
• I have to buy a new body as well as at least two new lenses, which simply can't compete with the price of just an MFT body

I also suck at selling things, so that's a whole hurdle I'd rather not have to deal with.  I also seem to keep finding uses for old gear, so there's a reluctance there too.

Conclusion

My conclusions were pretty simple:

1. The reduction in DR from the free options (using the GX85 or GH5 only) weren't worth the benefits, especially as things like the dim screen / moire / roll shake weren't bad enough in practice
2. The cost of the GH5ii, BMMSC 4K G2 (plus SSD), and GH6 weren't worth it considering how many issues they didn't solve (or new issues they introduced)
3. Therefore the GH7 was the only worthwhile option currently around

So, my decision is that unless I'm buying a GH7, I shouldn't invest in anything that doesn't align with that direction.  Considering I don't want to casually spend AUD3500 right now, this means I'll be keeping the current setup, perhaps with a few minor things if they're not that expensive.

The advantage of this do-almost-nothing approach is that when I get around to looking to upgrade, I won't have locked myself further into the MFT ecosystem than I am now, so if I decide to change systems later on I still can.  I also looked at the RED Komodo and found even a minimal rig was about 3x the weight of the BMMCC rig, so would be too heavy even if I could afford it.  So that eliminates all cinema cameras too, making things like buying a fancy external monitor a waste when my next camera is likely a MILC.

Hope this is useful 🙂  

[bjohn]

Definitely useful. The big lesson I keep relearning is that it's more important to get the shot than to have optimal image quality; of course if you can do both that's ideal, but in my case I find that I rarely shoot video because my cameras are so cumbersome to set up and operate.

For Halloween evening I got asked to make a short video of the trick-or-treaters in our neighbourhood and first I set out to do it with my OG Pocket, handheld (with three points of stabilization) but it all took so long and I kept having to adjust focus etc. that I quickly switched to my iPhone and got much better video for much less effort. "Better" in this case means I grabbed shots I would have missed with the Pocket; the Pocket video looked better but I was able to achieve much more with auto exposure and autofocus on the phone.

The GH7 seems like a good idea, since the only autofocus lens I own is a Panasonic (the 12-35 zoom) and I have some nice manual MFT lenses I could use on it. But I use Sony for photography and have a huge collection of lenses that I use on E-mount with adapters (I have no Sony lenses and only two native e-mount lenses, which I rarely use). So I have to decide whether to go the GH7 route or the FX-30 route as a more practical video camera with built-in stabilization, autofocus, etc.

[kye]

5 hours ago, bjohn said:

Definitely useful. The big lesson I keep relearning is that it's more important to get the shot than to have optimal image quality; of course if you can do both that's ideal, but in my case I find that I rarely shoot video because my cameras are so cumbersome to set up and operate.

Absolutely.

But, this is where things are highly contextual.

I've written about this before, but the summary was:

• Priority 1: Get the shot - You can't use the shots you didn't get.
• Priority 2: Get shots in the best way - Shots that are in focus, aren't shaky, have usable composition, don't have nervous-looking subjects or people in the background are staring at the camera, etc.
• Priority 4: Get the nicest image quality - Insert all the normal camera stuff here...  DR, colour science, etc.  

No, I didn't mis-number this, priority 4 is so far away from priority 1 & 2 that there is no Priority 3.

Now to context.

When I came up with that I was shooting my family and friends.  The most frequent Priority 1 challenge was security guards wouldn't let you shoot in museums, art galleries, shopping centres, some zoos, and even in parks if you had a "professional looking" camera, and the most frequent Priority 2 challenges were that I couldn't frame up fast enough to catch the moment, shots weren't in focus, and were too shaky.  
The only times that Priority 4 challenges came up was shooting shots where they weren't moving, or random shots without them in it, like landscapes and street scenes of markets etc. 

I also spent a lot of time analysing professional and award-winning edits of similar materials (travel / travel food shows such as Parts Unknown, Chefs Table, Street Food, as well as YT) and I discovered that in the professional stuff:

• the quality of their shots is solid but not breathtaking
• the quantity of shots was stunning - they're shooting vast quantities of material (one 45 minute episode had 2000 cuts!)
• the magic came from the structure, the interweaving of images combined with music and sound design, and the layering of interviews with voice-over narration

I used to shoot with the GH5 and manual primes as my main camera, but recently realised that the GX85 with AF zooms was the faster way to go, because it was smaller and less 'pro' looking so got into more places and when I was using it the AF and zooms made far more shots in focus, I got far more shots because I was quick enough, and lots less shots had random people in the background staring.  The GX85 became my main camera for this reason.

Then the kids moved out and so the previous trip (which inspired this post) was just about the location, so I knew that Priority 1 and 2 would be far easier to satisfy.  In South Korea many of the interesting places are public spaces (street malls and markets, not big shopping centres - although they have those too) so no security guards to worry about, and because I can mostly take all the time I need to frame up and expose and focus, mostly it came down to image quality.

However, you'll notice my setup wasn't only the BMMCC.  It was the BMMCC and GX85 for a reason.

My thinking on the previous trips and for my next one is that there are four types of places where I might shoot:

• Tourist places like lookouts etc, where everyone expects people to be filming
  Use the big camera
   
• Public places that are busy but not touristy, where people wouldn't be surprised to see someone filming
  Take both setups and try the big camera but switch if you have to
   
• Public places that people wouldn't expect to see someone shooting
  Take the small camera, try with a zoom but swap to pancake lens if required, or use phone
   
• Places where shooting wouldn't be expected and maybe not welcomed
  Take the small camera and pancake lens in a pocket and keep it in the pocket when not taking a shot, but potentially grab quick shots with phone instead

In terms of the logistics, the BMMCC requires a backpack anyway because the rig is too large for a sling bag, so any time I take it anywhere I take the GX85, zoom, and pancake lens as well.  The GX85 and zoom fit into a sling bag, and the other zoom and pancake lens also fit in there, so I take those too.
This means I can always "downsize" the rig I'm shooting with, depending on the situation.

This is the setup I plan to take on the next one.  There's no way I'd just take the "big camera", regardless of what it was (GH5, GH7, BMMCC, Komodo, etc).

[bjohn]

That all makes sense. I bought my BMPCC and BMMCCs for a documentary project (and future doc projects) and they'll work for that; most of my doc work is music-related and I don't need a "run and gun" setup. But I do a lot of concert and dance photography and am occasionally being asked to do video as well, and that's where something faster and easier to use would be helpful. My big requirement there is low-light performance, and it seems that despite its smaller sensor the GH7 might be better in that department than the FX30 (the FX3 is out of my price range, although the Nikon Z6iii could be a contender), plus I'd get the advantages of more depth of field (and thus more forgiving manual focus) when shooting MFT. I'm in no rush to make a decision as I can get by with my current cameras for now, but I definitely want a simpler, hand-holdable and faster option available when I need it.

[BTM_Pix]

On 11/2/2024 at 2:03 PM, kye said:

Non-MFT cameras

This is pretty simple, there are no good options currently available that are equivalent prices.

I'm wondering whether the new FujiFilm X-M5 might be an option if you looked for something outside the MFT format.

Its a proper little powerhouse for video with IBIS, PDAF, 10 bit 4:2:2 and 6.2K open gate etc

It is also just plain little as well, even against the GX80/85

Price wise its also substantially cheaper than anything comparable MFT wise like a G9ii or GH7.

X mount is a mature format so there are lots of lens options used to keep the overall cost down and lots of fast primes both first and third party to keep the low light situation up.

There are a lot of very capable zoom lenses as well from Sigma's 18-50mm f2.8 to Fuji's own 18-135mmF3.5-5.6.

If you need that extra boost to over 10x zoom then the Tamron 18-300mm f/3.5-6.3 would have you covered and then some.

For something more premium but under 10x, the constant aperture Fujifilm 18-120mm f4 would be the option and it also includes servo zoom.

The following full kit :

• X-M5
• Fuji 15-45 3.5-5.6 kit lens
• Viltrox AF 23mm f1.4
• Viltrox AF 33mm f1.4
• Viltrox AF 56mm f1.4
• Tamron 18-300mm f/3.5-6.3

Works out around $200 more than the GH7 body only and of course, aside from the camera itself, are all readily available used to keep the price down further.

Its a sobering look at how far MFT prices have crept up.

As I say, I know you're not really looking to buy something new but if you were then I think the X-M5 route is worth consideration.

Oddly enough, my recent experiences of travelling have shown a shift in the negative perception of people with "real" cameras as my observation is that people are now getting far more irritated by the pouting photoshoots using smartphones happening everywhere.

I was walking through St James Park in London a few nights ago and the amount of people draped over the bridge doing the "take a picture of the back of me as I gaze thoughtfully at Buckingham Palace" was ridiculous.

Particularly considering it was virtually pitch black !