A Merry Christmas from EOSHD

[Andrew Reid]

Aside from those very odd Pentax users I'd like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas, and a happy new year resolution of buying more cameras.

What is on your wish list and how are you spending the Christmas holidays?

👍

[Tim Sewell]

Happy Chrimbo to you too Andrew! Top of my wishlist would be for it to be summer, instead of currently being too cold and grey to go out and shoot anything!

[MrSMW]

10 minutes ago, Tim Sewell said:

Top of my wishlist would be for it to be summer

Always at the top of mine as soon as it gets past October. Still working on a plan to spend Jan-March in the Canary Islands every year...

Camera-wise, an S2R please. Reality, a 6 pack of low cut black socks.

Wife, daughter, 2 dogs and cat, in our Christmas themed timber shed. Was supposed to be Strasbourg/Colmar, but bigger than expected tax bill.

[BTM_Pix]

I will mainly be spending the festive period on very long walks of self loathing and contemplating the sheer scale of the hubris involved in this statement.

In 2025, as part of my ambitious expansion plans, I plan to fail miserably at delivering those five products and an additional two new ones.

 

[pat]

Snowy Christmas in the french Alps

[BTM_Pix]

24 minutes ago, MrSMW said:

Camera-wise, an S2R please.

And....

24 minutes ago, MrSMW said:

Wife, daughter, 2 dogs and cat, in our Christmas themed timber shed.

Hang on, you are him aren't you ?

[MrSMW]

33 minutes ago, BTM_Pix said:

Hang on, you are him aren't you ?

Well if I did an AI blend of my house with my shed and then set it on fire, I'd get pretty much that!

[eatstoomuchjam]

Happy holidays from me as well!

My holiday plans are spending time with family for Christmas and then flying to Sao Paulo before the New Year to spend a couple of months escaping Minnesota Winter.

Wish list?  To spend next year making better use of all the gear that I already have, planning to shoot my first feature - hopefully I can get the script written while abroad and everybody's happy enough on the edit for the short (that will become the 10-15 minutes of the feature) that they'll gladly come back for the rest!  As for gear, I'm theoretically set, but we'll see how prices are on C80's once they hit the used market - and if the hoped/wanted trip to Namibia works out, debating the finer points of renting vs owning the GF 500/5.6 and how irritating it would be to travel with it vs the 250/4 and 1.4x tc which I already own and cropping from 100 megapixels (rent vs own also to be determined by availability on the used market and pricing there)

[newfoundmass]

The holidays haven't been the same since my Mom passed in 2016, but I am trying to make the most of them after beating cancer last year!

As far as cameras, I think I am set for 2025. I MIGHT swap out my two S5s for S5IIs, depending on how the year goes. Not that I am unhappy with my S5s, it would just make matching them with my S5II X in post easier. I also might snag a S9... we'll see! But overall I am pretty settled until I see how things look next year or in 2026, as far as Lumix goes. What I have (two S5s and a S5II X) are honestly cameras I could use until the wheels fall off and I'd be happy with them, I'm more just looking at the long term big picture as far as where I end up.

Happy holidays to all of you!

[QuickHitRecord]

I don't have any plans to upgrade in 2025. Two C70s is plenty for me. If anything, I want to shoot more little passion projects with c-mount lenses on my EOS-M. I've also joined a screenwriting group and purchased an old AlphaSmart word processor which seems a much better place to spend any time and energy that is not sucked up by work.

[ntblowz]

Bought a S9 and gonna use it to do a tribute video of my mum while she is still in good shape this holiday.

[Ninpo33]

Merry Xmas everyone…!!!

Up in the California mountains for the week renovating our ski cabin with the family, (3 dogs and two cats) Really warm this year with only one real snowstorm back in November so kind of an odd winter for us. 
 

I’m back in analysis paralysis as far as camera gear for 2025 goes. Bouncing  back and forth between doubling down on cheap, dated LUMIX gear with a Leica SL2 thrown in for high res stills or being more sensible and getting the S1R to hold me over for a bit. Or… finally jumping to Fuji or Sony. Fuji feels more fun and Sony feels more sensible and boring. Plus the high prices for what specs you get just feels rough after coming from LUMIX. Dream cameras on my list right now are the GFX100ii with an X-H2s for fast moving stuff and high frame rates. Little X-M5 for fun personal stuff and a backup camera for the bag. Or the A1 marked down to affordable levels and a ZV-e1/FX3 for a tight little travel kit. I’m finishing up a documentary in Japan this year and do a lot of solo, run and gun stuff so the Sony AF should be high on my list. Instead I’m doing my usual though and going after the weird quirky stuff. Anamorphic and speedboosted vintage glass. Chasing after high quality stuff on the cheap. 
 

I’ve been having fun with lenses in the meantime and scooping up a lot of my bucket list vintage glass while the yen is down in Japan against the USD. The Konica 57mm f/1.2 and the Yashica Tomioka 55mm f/1.2 have been unobtainable for a long time but I was able to score remarkable deals this year on those two. Can’t wait to nail down my next camera bodies so I can start playing around. Hunting for a GFX100s sub $2,000 this week but also have the black X-M5 in my cart from Japan with kit lens for $800. S9 is on sale for $900 though so I’m going back and forth between the two. 
 

it’s actually pretty amazing that for under $2,000/$1,500 you have some of the best technology out there from all the big companies right now. We’re quite spoiled. 
 

 

 

[Snowfun]

Absolutely no new cameras in 2025. Chord Electronics will be taking my money as I need to upgrade my audio system. 
(Indeed, a couple of cameras less - FX30 & BM4kStudio will head towards MPB).

Seasonal felicitations!

[Emanuel]

Thanks for the wishes of you all here! : )

 

In this year I lost my best friends ever, my father and dearest aunt, a mother to me, hope 2025 may only become better than this 2024...

No complaints at professional level though...

Five/six awards (the 6th 'cause we're working on a sequel of a previous TV series not yet under my umbrella by then despite a determinant role in the nomination towards this prize this time) ten days ago for two feature movies shot in NZ and Macau, China, respectively, as producer with two of my partners in crime by this scribe of yours too.

 

North of Portugal. My brother's new home. With my core family of three, brother, sister-in-law, nephews and his brother-in-law, sister-in-law, niece and respective mother, very likely. Our mother is still recovering from a surgery two weeks ago, the 2nd one this year from another fall and same broken leg... so the youngest will be with her instead. Just life, I guess.

 

While waiting for my FX30 next week arriving from a U.S. trip, Osmo Pocket 3 (have you already bought this jaw-dropper?) and their really small and handy accessories are the ones I regret today to not have discovered earlier from the previous model anyway. As not enough reported before, that larger sensor, 4K 100/120fps and 10-bit D-Log M (even 4:2:0) are a thrice must : )

4th axis stabilizer just to mention one of the plus size : D of this little toy is simultaneously-plainly-and-luxuriously a simple joy... : X

The set of filters and extra add-ons, no less ; ) Testing all of them! : P

 

Happy Christmas and the best 2025 to everyone!

 

EDIT/PS -- @Andrew Reid Thanks for extending that infamous 5-minutes editing limit here, serves to share more in the same post and in age of a big fail to twitter/X model without useless multiple posts so dispersive and annoying I intend to believe LOL :- )

[ArashM]

Merry Christmas and happy holiday to everyone.

 

[PannySVHS]

Merry Christmas to you all! Spending time with family. It's been very sweet. I studied some of my footage from this year. The og pocket smokes the S1H in available daylight for colors and ooc textures. So maybe the Lumix has to go. Still shaking my head how easily the og pocket grades. So no camera purchases planned but instead selling a bunch of things.

@Ninpo33Many years ago I read that the Tomioka is sold by total rip offs for total rip off prices and that's not worth a fracture of those. There must be a Revuenon 55mm 1.2 for much less money.

[IronFilm]

On 12/24/2024 at 12:28 AM, Andrew Reid said:

What is on your wish list

In recent years I've been trying hard to not buy as much camera gear, as after all, surely I have plenty already for casual usage? Plus my professional focus is on the Sound Dept these days, and that's where my money should be going instead. 

However I did at the end of this year go a little silly in jumping into the X Mount ecosystem, as I've got a kinda-ish decent-ish Fuji stills camera (the X-A3 from years ago, from before Fujifilm eBay prices went crazy) for casual shooting with, but have only ever used adapted lenses on it from other mounts. 

So I recently put together a very cheap Fujifilm lens kit of native X mount lenses: 12mm f2 / 21mm f1.2 / 25mm f2 / 56mm f1.7 (I half wonder if the 21mm f1.2 lens was a mistake, was using it for the first time yesterday, and it was a lot bigger and heavier than I imagined! Perhaps a bit too much so for the little X-A3? Maybe I should have got the TTArtisan 27mm f/2.8 lens instead)

I feel this is one of the big themes of the late 2010's and the 2020's, the rise of third party lens designs and manufacturers from China.

You can put together a cheap set of lenses now for so very little. 

Is why I went for this with my Fujifilm X-A3 camera when I wanted a cheap but decently good-ish setup for a small walk around / travel kit. 

Because when I look at what other small sized mirrrorless bodies I have, then my Sony a5100 died ages ago, my Panasonic GF3 is far far too old now, and the Samsung NX300 is an evolutionary dead end. 

And buying those extra X Mount lenses cost a similar amount or even less than what it would cost to buy a replacement body for the a5100/GF3 of similar vintage to the X-A3 (late 2016) then using my existing MFT / E Mount lenses. Such as the Sony a6300 (early 2016) or Panasonic GX8 (mid 2015).

As for 2025? I will go back to trying to resist getting any more cameras or lenses. (but maybe that 27mm f/2.8 lens will tempt me which I mentioned earlier. Or maybe I will finally succumb to getting that Nikon D750/D500/D810 I've wanted for years. Or maybe the Fujfilm X-M5 or X-H1 or X-S10 will tempt me as an upgrade if I enjoy the X-A3 too much)

If anything, maybe I should try to end 2025 with less cameras than I'll start 2025 with. Perhaps selling my FS7, F3, NX300, and some of my Panasonic cameras. Maybe. Or maybe I'll just keep on procrastinating downsizing. Then again if I go ahead with my 2025 plans to move overseas, then I will definitely need to take downsizing more seriously.

 

On 12/24/2024 at 12:28 AM, Andrew Reid said:

and how are you spending the Christmas holidays?

Next month, after spending NYE with filmmaking friends here in Auckland, then I plan on traveling to NZ's South Island to have a holiday there for a few weeks. Been a long time since I've visited the South Island, will be a fun road trip.

[Ninpo33]

5 hours ago, PannySVHS said:

@Ninpo33Many years ago I read that the Tomioka is sold by total rip offs for total rip off prices and that's not worth a fracture of those. There must be a Revuenon 55mm 1.2 for much less money.

I picked up my really nice copy for $250. They list at $1,200 or so these days and yeah… I wasn’t about to pay those prices for one. Couldn’t believe I got it for such a low “buy it now” price but it worked out I guess… I’m also building a Yashica set of lenses built at the Tomioka factory and the 55mm f/1.2 was kind of mandatory for the set. 

It’s a pretty sweet lens and f/1.2 was somewhat rare back then and quite expensive even at the time. Radioactive glass I think, I haven’t tested my copy yet but it has the gold glass with age now and either the Thorium or other rare earth elements give it quite the warm tone. it’s rare and collectible and also a good lens but I think just optics alone places it at something under $750 or so maybe? These days it’s tough to say what something is worth on performance alone, just look at Canon FD prices… 

The rear element goes right to the edge so they are always getting chipped or cracked on the back end. Might be another reason why they are becoming rare. 

[Snowfun]

14 hours ago, ArashM said:

 

Almost snap!

[ArashM]

@Snowfun That's great, was your image taken in Scotland?