Subforums
-
The EOSHD YouTube Channel (23,420 visits to this link)
17,296 topics in this forum
-
- 1.2k replies
- 470.9k views
-
- 5.8k replies
- 1.9m views
-
- 9.1k replies
- 2.7m views
-
- 0 replies
- 1.7k views
-
- 700 replies
- 310.9k views
-
- 1.8k replies
- 764.4k views
-
Internal 32-bit float stereo paired with lossless 120mm reach from a 20mm lens — all inside a genuinely pocket-sized 10-bit 1-inch sensor gimbal camera? 1 2
- 35 replies
- 1.8k views
-
- 11 replies
- 258 views
-
- 563 replies
- 264.6k views
-
- 4 replies
- 3.1k views
-
- 97 replies
- 76.9k views
-
- 24 replies
- 1.5k views
-
- 9 replies
- 1.2k views
-
- 11 replies
- 1.5k views
-
- 1 reply
- 408 views
-
- 14 replies
- 8.7k views
-
- 58 replies
- 5.2k views
-
- 49 replies
- 3.5k views
-
- 14 replies
- 7.2k views
-
- 2 replies
- 328 views
-
- 0 replies
- 304 views
-
- 11 replies
- 2k views
-
- 20 replies
- 1.7k views
-
- 2 replies
- 2.6k views
-
- 82 replies
- 9k views
-
- 127 replies
- 62.1k views
-
- 121 replies
- 66k views
-
- 0 replies
- 468 views
-
- 0 replies
- 536 views
-
- 0 replies
- 535 views
-
- 5 replies
- 1k views
-
- 314 replies
- 151.5k views
-
- 12 replies
- 6k views
-
- 30 replies
- 34.2k views
-
- 1 reply
- 506 views
-
- 8 replies
- 13.8k views
-
- 45 replies
- 13.4k views
-
- 13 replies
- 974 views
-
- 6 replies
- 2.4k views
-
- 2 replies
- 1k views
-
Popular Contributors
-
Forum Statistics
-
Total Topics17.3k
-
Total Posts351.9k
-
-
Member Statistics
-
Posts
-
By eatstoomuchjam · Posted
But all of that was previously already possible by using something like the Insta360 Go mounted on the brim of a hat. And as I previously mentioned, that has the advantage of actually being the perspective of the person using it, vs the perspective of their chest. -
I think the POV Head Tracker should not be seen merely as a vlogging gimmick or as another accessory for people who want to film themselves walking down the street. There are many different ways of filming, framing and capturing reality. The most “professional” approach is often understood as the most controlled one: you plan the shoot, you discuss the framing, you block the scene, you decide where the camera goes, you decide what the subject is supposed to give you, and then you execute. That is obviously valid, and it is the basis of a lot of good cinema. But it is not the only way to make images. There is also another tradition: a more intuitive, observational, physical and spontaneous way of filming, where the camera is less a machine imposing a pre-decided frame on the world and more an extension of the filmmaker’s presence inside that world. That is where I think something like the Insta360 POV Head Tracker becomes interesting. The question is not only “what can it do technically?” The question is: what kind of relationship with reality does it allow? When you are operating a camera in the conventional way, you are always doing several things at once. You are looking, framing, correcting, adjusting, deciding, reacting, and at the same time you are also visibly present as “the person filming”. That presence changes the situation. It changes the people in front of you. It changes the rhythm of what happens. It can intimidate, formalise, freeze or theatricalise reality. In documentary, this is especially important. The more you plan, the more you risk fixing the subject before you have really encountered it. You may think you are observing reality, but you are already working on a construction of reality. You are no longer only receiving what is in front of you. You are fabricating a gaze, and the subject starts to exist inside that fabrication. Of course, complete objectivity does not exist. Every image is already a point of view. But there is still a big difference between a camera that constantly announces itself as an intervention and a camera system that allows the filmmaker to remain more physically and psychologically inside the situation. This is why the POV Head Tracker interests me. It may allow the filmmaker to film without constantly “operating” in the traditional sense. The camera can follow the natural direction of the filmmaker’s attention. The image can become closer to a lived point of view rather than a pre-composed shot. Not perfect objectivity, obviously, but perhaps a more immediate form of subjectivity. That distinction matters. A head-tracked gimbal camera could be useful not because it replaces deliberate cinematography, but because it opens another mode of acquisition: a more instinctive, embodied, less intimidating mode. It lets you be present with the subject while still filming. It can reduce the gap between seeing and recording. In that sense, I see a possible historical parallel with what happened when smaller 16mm cameras became available. Those cameras did not simply make cinema smaller. They changed the grammar of cinema. They allowed filmmakers to move differently, to follow people differently, to enter rooms differently, to film streets, faces, accidents, gestures, private moments and unstable situations in ways that would have been much harder with heavier, more industrial tools. You can connect that to cinéma vérité, direct cinema, the Nouvelle Vague, the New American Cinema, Jonas Mekas in New York, underground and independent filmmaking, and later the influence of that freer, more mobile language on figures like Cassavetes, Scorsese, and the whole post-studio generation. Even mainstream cinema eventually absorbed some of that looseness, that handheld energy, that search for immediacy. Jonas Mekas is not just an abstract reference for me. I had the privilege of knowing him personally in the mid-1990s, at the Figueira da Foz International Film Festival, which he used to attend. In that same context, I was also fortunate enough to receive an award as best daily press film critic. More importantly, a project I am still developing today was born precisely from that contact with Mekas. So when I refer to him here, I am not only invoking a name from film history. I am also referring to a very concrete personal encounter with a way of understanding cinema as diary, presence, immediacy, memory and life. The technology did not create those artistic revolutions by itself. But it made certain gestures possible. And when a tool makes a new gesture possible, it can also make a new kind of cinema possible. That is how I would look at the POV Head Tracker. Not as “AI tracking for creators”, but as a small step toward a different relation between body, gaze and camera. From the end of last month and carrying into this June, I worked on the making-of for A NOITE, Leonel Vieira’s film adaptation of José Saramago’s homonymous play. During the shoot, we used the Osmo Pocket 3 alongside other cameras, including a Sony A7S III, an FX30, a Panasonic GX80/GX85 and other small-format tools, Insta360 included. The film itself was being shot on two ARRI cameras, so this kind of low-profile equipment was obviously not what people on a cinema set are most used to seeing. Even Leonel Vieira, the director, looked at the Osmo Pocket 3 and jokingly said it looked like a toy camera. But that was precisely part of the point. I took the initiative to use it without hesitation, accepting the risks of bringing that kind of device into a professional film set, and combining it with different optical tools, including black mist filters to create atmosphere, Sirui anamorphic lenses and other accessories. In that context, I became very aware of how valuable it would be to have a device that lets me film without constantly managing the camera as an object. Not to mention that 10-bit Log recording is now available on the Luna Ultra as well. In a making-of situation, the best moments often happen before people know they are “performing” for the camera. They happen between takes, in hesitations, glances, silences, rehearsals, small gestures, private exchanges, and moments when the machinery of cinema briefly becomes human again. But the moment you raise the camera, adjust the frame, move closer, correct the angle, ask for space or visibly operate, you can lose the very thing you were trying to capture. The reality in front of the lens changes because of you. And that is fundamental in a making-of context: to be as minimally intrusive as possible, so as not to disturb the set of the main film being shot. The reactions of the professionals involved are, in many ways, the real subject of a making-of, and those reactions should not be manipulated by the visible presence of the image-capturing device itself. In our case, we were working with a very small crew: two to three people at most. In fact, it was necessary to convince Leonel Vieira to accept a maximum of three people, because ideally he preferred two, and sometimes only one person could be present. In those situations, when only one person was shooting and I still needed two possible angles, a camera A and a camera B, the only viable option was to have a B camera as autonomous and unobtrusive as possible, which is exactly how the Osmo Pocket 3 was used. With a device such as the Luna Ultra and its POV Head Tracker, that kind of work would become much easier, not only during the shoot itself but also later, when reaching the post-production suite and needing more options in the edit. So a device that lets the camera follow your attention, while your hands and your body remain less occupied by the act of filming, could be extremely useful. It could allow the operator to be less intrusive, less theatrical, less visibly extractive. It could make the camera feel less like a weapon pointed at reality and more like a witness moving through it. That does not mean this is for every situation. It is not a substitute for composed cinematography, lighting, blocking, lenses, or intentional mise-en-scène. But it could be very valuable for documentary, making-of work, rehearsal footage, street filming, travel, observational cinema, and any situation where spontaneity matters more than perfect formal control. The professional instinct is often to control everything. But sometimes cinema gains power when we control less. Sometimes the most authentic image is not the one we planned best, but the one we were able to receive before reality became aware of our plan. That, to me, is where the POV Head Tracker could become genuinely interesting. -
@mercerI started my cam journey in earnest on the 5D MKII/IIII with the ML hack - so I have a soft spot for that RAW workflow! And I still have two 5D MKIII that I will prob never sell. I currently have a R5OV as travel/casual/C cam but I am not feeling the APSC look. So when I recently rediscovered the FP I became a bit obsessed with the idea of having something that small and powerful become my casual/travel cam. Meanwhile I'd just keep the R50V as a C-cam to my R5Cs. But as you say, the FP seems so finnicky that it has required an unprecedented level of research/due diligence on my end. So I've been wavering back and forth for about a month now. As it stands, if I can get a used FP in good condition for $600 USD (just missed one with the modded back dial for that price!) then I'll go for it (knowing I'd still be buying the DPL screen mod, the DPL base cage+SSD holder+SSD bottom mount and side accessory, a Meike or Vizelex Smart adapter/VND, and the pdmovie 3). If not, there's the Lumix S9 and maaaaybe the Nikon ZR but that then I'm getting to R6V territory as far as size and price. -
By QuickHitRecord · Posted
I'm not too worried about a short that will be sent out to a dozen or so festivals and then make its way onto YouTube. If I was hoping for distribution, that would be another story! I remember seeing this trailer! I think it’s a great one to add. -
You may have read me post before that I came to the FP, due to my love of 1080p (actually 1920x818) ML Raw on the 5D Mark iii. I seriously love the image and it still reigns as the best image and favorite camera I have ever owned, but being 1080p and an EF mount camera, it could be "soft" with certain lenses and I couldn't use some lenses I have collected over the years. That said, in some ways, the FP is the spiritual successor to the 5Diii ML Raw because both are "uncompressed" raw and both have, or lack, a manufacturer designed post production workflow. Coming from ML Raw, this never bothered me. With the FP, I set the picture profile to OFF and used the camera meter to judge exposure... as long as you hover +/- 0, you will be able to finesse the image in post however you want to. So I never worried about seeing an accurate representation of anything with it. I made sure I didn't clip the highlights, used False Color to check skin and hit record. As far as EF mount lenses go, I have 4... the Canon 28mm 1.8, Samyang 50mm 1.4, and two modified lenses... a Minolta 58mm 1.4 and the Canon FD 50mm 1.2 L. I have so many other vintage lenses that I didn't even get an EF adapter. However I was planning to bring out my 5Diii more often, so I looked at purchasing (repurchasing) a couple lenses... the 24-70mm f/4 and 35mm f/2 IS, so I did glance at a few of the electronic adapters for L Mount thinking they could pull double duty. At the time I was more worried about IS translating over to the FP than I was ND, so the Sigma adapter seemed like the safest bet. The FP was intended to be an inexpensive and tiny raw camera that I could walk around with and grab shots for short films, so I wanted the footprint to be as minimal as possible, which unfortunately is near impossible with the FP and eventually frustrated me. I later bought an inexpensive GH6 and the Arri LogC3 upgrade key, with similar intentions but the crop annoys me. Now I think I'm going to sell both and get a Nikon ZR, and be done with it. I have my 5D3 and a Canon V1 for one film I started working on and the Nikon will be for the other film. All that said, the FP is a fine camera and the image is pretty damn good, it's just too quirky for my run and gun incognito sensibilities, but if you don't mind rigging it up a little, I can't imagine the S9 could come close to the FP in pure image quality. In fact, I was thinking of waiting to do a major camera upgrade and getting the original S5 as a stop gap for my second film and then reevaluating my cameras this time next year, and I may still do that for the IBIS, but in reality, the image is more important to me, and the flexibility of a raw workflow, so I'd probably just keep the FP for that scenario... even though the GH6's IBIS may have spoiled me a little.
-
