All Activity

Dude, my infomercial will be future-proof! In 10 years, humans will evolve and they'll be able to see that 12k detail on their phones. Adapt or die, man!

I love 1080p footage. To make 4K look good, you have to throw all kinds of filters at it. I can’t even imagine 8K, let alone 12K — that’s just crazy territory. Even 4K already shows every skin pore, sucking all the magic out of the image. 1080p still hits that sweet spot where the detail supports the story. Hyper-sharp 4K, 8K, and 12K just end up turning the story into “look how ugly that person is.” The narrative goes in one ear and out the other. I can’t help wondering if there’s some level of collusion between computer manufacturers and camera companies. What if 1080p was always “good enough”? That would be a huge let-down. Why buy a new computer if a 10-year-old one can do just as well — aside from saving ten minutes on an export? Granted, with a 12K sensor, I imagine moiré would disappear for good, giving you an incredibly clean 1080p file if the downsampling is done properly.

I think in any given time window, a truly good movie is a rare thing. It's not that there are no good films being currently made, rather we remember those old films which left a lasting impression on us, and tend to forget those films which were not good. For films made in the 1980s and 1990s we remember the very best ones. For films made in the 2020s we are more likely to remember the latest ones we saw. High image quality (be it high dynamic range or resolution) cameras don't make things worse in terms of the quality of the outcome but it may be that they motivate the production to aim for greater perfection in some sense and then not realize that technical perfection is not necessarily a worthy goal on its own if it leads to losses in other areas, such as the story and dramatic intent. I think visual aesthetics have been changing with the ubiquity of the mobile phone camera and the kind of processing that phone manufacturers apply to the images by default and also the kind of post-processing that people apply to their images in instagram etc. People who have grown up on these devices are used to the auto-HDR AI look and they may think that kind of a look is normal and looks good. Cinema cameras that capture high dynamic range allow that kind of post-processing to be applied, but they also allow other options; it is how they are used that is important. As camera and TV (particularly streaming) resolution has been increasing, it is possible that to get technical perfection, the producers think all the actors need to be really beautiful with perfect skin etc. as they are shown in such great fine detail in the movie. Post-processing edits to how skinny models look in magazine covers or online, and fixing of imperfections in plastic surgery por post-processing also have lead to new aesthetics which is like a race that got out of hand, leading to ever less realistic photographs and movies. If they process everything to look a tone-mapped fake HDR image with local tonal variations everywhere and no contrast between the different elements in the scene, and all the characters are super perfect then there is a huge disconnect with reality. Classical films often had rough characters along with the beautiful, which made things look realistic even if the lighting was hard and stylized (by necessity, as the film material required a lot of light, so hard lights were used and there had to be intent). Actual HDR technology can help avoid the tone-mapped HDR look and have shadows dark all the while showing details (preserving the global contrast between parts of the image). However, how this technology is used is up to the people making the movie, of course. I have to admit that most of my favorite movies were shot on film, although I do like several which were shot on digital. I don't think shooting on film per se makes those movies look good but it may be that the filmmakers were able to choose an aesthetic (by film and lighting and costume choices etc.) and hold creative control over it with a more firm hand when using traditional techniques. This could also be why camera manufacturers have been adding "looks" and "grain" baked into the footage as options recently. They can help to lock in a certain look and the added grain prevents excessive mucking up with the image in post-processing. However, to me this seems like less than an ideal solution which would be for the team members to communicate and understand the intent and work together to achieve it. I notice there is no agreement as to what look is good online, people will have wildly differing opinions on such topics. Thus it is up to us as viewers to select our favorites and enjoy them rather than hope that every new movie follows the same aesthetics. This will never happen, of course, as there are so many opinions.

The thing is, not many people use the Alexa 35, those who know will get fantastic result. DR is the one thing that was missing from digital in the filmlook as film already had great DR. Resolution for sure is just too much. I don't want to shoot more than 4k, or at worst 6k to reframe a little bit. But it is already stretching it.

My Takumar 50mm F1.4 arrived and I took it out to compare it with the Voigt 42.5mm F0.95 with Sirui 1.25x adapter setup. The Voigt+Sirui is equivalent to 68mm F1.5 and the Takumar+Speedbooster is equivalent to 71mm F2.0, so a bit longer and a bit slower. In order to avoid changing lenses all the time, I did a little lap with the Voigt+Sirui, then did another lap with the Takumar and re-created the compositions from the first lap (as well as grabbing other shots too). These images have had a film-emulation applied, and have had exposures matched, but no other changes, so things like contrast and WB etc should be the same. My impressions: Voigtlander is softer at F0.95 than the Takumar at F1.4 I haven't compared them with the Voigt stopped down, but I'd probably rather get a bit more subject separation than sharper images. The extra sharpness of the Takumar makes the focus peaking a lot easier to use when using the screen (using the EVF you can see what is in focus but the monitor you need peaking on) The focus ring on the Takumar is a lot looser (not that damped but not too loose either), but of course it's backwards The extra width of the Voigt is apparent. It makes me wonder if the Speedbooster is a little less boosting than I claimed. The Sirui has a lot of coma on the edges (stretching light sources horizontally) so the bokeh seems more horizontal than vertical on lights, whereas the Tak seems to have a zoom-blur sort of effect which is a bit odd The Tak has slightly lower contrast (hard to see but I noticed it when trying to match exposures) In addition to those, I also grabbed these with the Takumar: Swirly bokeh! and it's not a Helios!! It has a nice halation/glow but the ghosts from the light sources are real. This is something I am thinking a lot about because I find them to be very distracting. Seems sharp at the edges at closest focus. The bokeh is confusing - sometimes with bubbles and sometimes not. I actually find that the response to light sources in this lens is very complicated - sometimes it stretches along the spokes of a wheel and other times along the rim of the wheel. Also something I noticed but isn't really visible in stills is that light sources pointed straight at the camera have a flare that's like a loop, like this, which can look pretty distracting too. My conclusions are: The focus being lighter and peaking being more obvious makes it a bit easier and faster to use, so much so that I changed my process to where I'd adjust the vND, then hit record and then focus in the 2s it takes the GH7 to begin recording The size and weight difference is significant and I found I was able to shoot people from a lot closer with it than the Sirui The small size and weight mean it's a no-brainer to pack on trips where I'm reluctant to pack the Voig/Sirui combo Next is to test it with an oval insert to get some stretched bokeh. As a proof of concept it certainly looks promising.

People fight over who has closer DR and latitude to Alexa 35, then apply a LUT that drops the DR to 6 stops to look like Heat 1995.

Here's my dumb-ass-getting-older-by-the-second-opinion: In an era where some people are starting to look back at 80's and 90's films while saying, "Why don't movies look as good as that anymore"? I'm not eager to jump into the high-resolution-hyper-DR-fray. The best looking film I ever made was in 1080p on consumer cameras before I really was trying to do a hell of a lot with color grading. There's GOT to be a push back at intense IQ realism in cinema sooner or later, right? Right? Ah, wtf do I know?

8K sampled from 12K should be really good 8K and it's basically how you'd get 4:4:4 quality from a bayer sensor. If the FX8 specs are as-rumored, it could be a real hit. Though if Sony try to sell it for $6K+, it'll be a really hard sell. If they don't, it'll be cool to see the prices drop on their existing camera line-up.

A couple of years ago, I was saying on Forums that Arri would fail, and people were calling me stupid. Ohhh its image is so special, etc etc how peasants could understand this. But the problem is you can't sell a lot of 70-100 000 usd cameras, the market is what it is, even more so when you have very capable cameras coming for much less. You reach a level where that 5% more cannot justify the 10, 20x the price. Before you had the highend market where camera cost/rent is peanuts compared to the overall cost, but that secondary market, the people that used to rent those highend cameras, can now buy a camera that will do 90% of what they need, and will rent only 10% of what they used to do. Arri and most US/german companies are going to be eaten by the Chinese ones. They still live in the rental business, for camera and other gears light lighting etc. The principal of the Chinese is that they will produce affordable equipment for the many, that will help them also produce for few highend that they will sell. You will find Aperture/Godox/Nanlight models that will cost less than a hundred dollars, to 4k led light costing more than 10 000 USD. They will sell a thousands of the 300 USD 300 watt cob monolight, for perhaps every 10 000 USD 5000 watt one. But those thousands of 300 USD lights will help them for R&D for those big lights. same for camera, imagine if Arri had repackage the original Arri LF in a more affordable casing, taking out some features of frame rate and sell it for 10K. They would be selling thousands of them, perhaps at the detriment of their higher ends, but those thousands of 10k models would overall bring so much money.

Probably because it wasn't ready for the Burano, time and technology marches on. A future Fuji GFX camera with a 12K sensor is an appealing prospect though. Full frame sweet spot I think is 8K.

I just think it's a form of culture rot and US cinema will go down with the ship. The west is in decline and it's time for China to take over at the top of the world order, and that includes cinema. Better start learning Mandarin.

There's something about that 33 megapixel sensor. It's a sweet spot. It also helps to shoot with manual WB as the Sony AWB doesn't just dial in the Kelvin it does a wild green/magenta bias depending on the light, and gets it wrong sometimes. But the underlying image is REALLY good, if you don't mind a bit of occasional rolling shitter.

For now as a Nikon shooter, I am more inclined to shoot NRAW and do the renaming trick to R3D, than to shoot R3D as I am finding that the Nraw has more DR than the R3D and you can shoot the normal version that takes only about 370 mbs for 24 fps in 4k and 700 mbs for 6k. This is a little test of conversion of Nev to R3D. You have NEV (Nikon RAw), NEV but using the RED lut, Then the Nev to R3D renaming and finally the REDraw file. then So I need to make a little bit more test, with skin tones etc, but they are quite close to me, even more so that even between the different red cameras like the Raptor and Komodo, their is some color difference. The yellow are a little bit more saturated and the image is a little more toward yellow in the Nikon ZR redraw R3D files. On side by side test the ZR was the more yellowish of the red camera. So it might balance out in the end.

One thing this test shows is that the Nraw seems to have better DR and secondly the ZR has great DR/latitude. It is scoring 5 stop above and 3 to 4 stop below. So you are at 8+ to 9 stop of latitude which is very good. Very close to the Panasonic S1ii, Red raptor and for reference the Alexa LF is at 10 stops. I put the link to the video below, he has an English version sub, that is his own voice and not AI.

U-turn, - would not be the first time in my life and won’t be the last… Ordered and arriving Tuesday as my new principal video lens. On an S1RII. Why? Simple, - the only way I can make a 3 camera (over a 4 camera) system work, is with zooms. And although I keep considering it out of need over choice, anything over around 700/750g is just larger and heavier than I’d like and really, ideally no more than 500g. As much as I love the Sigma 28-45mm f1.8, it’s a bit big and heavy and slightly limited, even if engaging hybrid zoom crop mode making it more like a 28-70mm (hybrid zoom = x1.4 and engaging standard digital IS = x1.1). It’s a 1kg chunk of glass and isn’t that stable on a freestanding monopod. I have the Sigma 28-70mm f2.8 and that’s been a workhorse and remains so for me, but is now welded to my other S1RII for stills duty, again with hybrid zoom mode making it more like a 28-100mm but without that last bit of compression a 28-105 might have. There is the recent Lumix 24-60mm f2.8 full frame lens and it was an option, but I like the crop option f1.8 from Sigma with its internal zoom. On the S1RII, it offers 4.7k 50/60p in 17:9 and with standard EIS engaged, a useful range of 28-66mm is full-frame terms. Anyway, that is the plan subject to testing it out over the next couple of weeks and if it doesn’t work out as expected, the Lumix 24-60 could be an option, but it’s the more modern reincarnation of the old 18-35 f1.8 but with more range and vastly better AF. Keeping my Lumix 18mm f1.8 to slap on for those few but essential occasions where I do need more width than 28mm for video and the 35mm f1.8 for better low light capability for stills, but the 50mm is basically redundant and the 85, dunno, undecided… I ended up using the 85 a lot more for video than expected the second half of my last season just gone, but about 15mm too long most of the time so probably also going… So going forward I can dedicate one unit to stills, one to roaming video and the third to static video and as a one man band, I don’t think there is a better option for my needs.

Maybe the movie industry will bounce back like vinyl and film when enough folks begin to recognise that they do in fact miss the good old days. Or perhaps not enough will and we are doomed to…well, doom scrolling. I refuse myself not to (use my phone whilst watching something) not simply on point of principal, but because I have an actual interest in watching shows and movies and not simply having them on as background noise whilst I check every 30 seconds people I don’t know or care about, have acknowledged my existence. Or what they just had to eat.

Thanks John for the app suggestion. I use PhotoMechanic for pics and have done for probably at least a decade and it’s my culling software. I do think it was having identical named files 🫣 in both S1RII’s that was causing me the issues because at first I thought it was the latest stoopid Premiere update, but seems the stoopid one was the user…

Cinema is going the way of the railroad. A novelty experience. Why hire a crew to film your car commercial when you can prompt AI to have a car do donuts in the desert with a AI narrator? People are too apathetic and dumb to know the difference between real and fake anymore. I haven't been to a movie theater since Dunkirk. I haven't had a killer movie experience since like "The Matrix" or "Lord of the Rings". People are overworked, overwhelmed, and underprepared for this AI Idiocracy we are barreling towards. People are filling that feeling of impending upheaval with distractions. I for one have canceled most of my subscriptions or upgrading to a new phone "just because there is a new one". Fuck the instagrams, facebooks, and tiktoks of the world. Scrolling physically makes me sick now and I'm actually glad for it. They don't get to monetize my attention anymore.

This is how I name all my footage: 2025-11-23_16-49-13_S5M2.MOV I do this with a free app called XNviewMP. This has served me well for finding date, time of day, and camera. Here's the renaming template: {Creation Date[Y-m-d_H-M-S]}_S5M2 On each import, I can select the last template used for a particular camera. I just use the Finder for finding files. For photos, it's a little more complicated: {EXIF:Date Taken [Y-m-d_H-M-S]}_City_Country_{EXIF:Model}_{EXIF:Focal Length}mm_F{EXIF:F-Number}_ISO{EXIF:ISO Value}_{EXIF:Exposure Time}

I second it, in terms of the A7 cii. High Iso grain is not as blotchy as in the A7iv, and honestly, the evf was one of the reasons to switch from the A7iv. The body is so big that the centered evf is very uncomfortable to use, at least when you have a big nose like me. Additionally, it somewhat flashes the eye in a rather stressfull way. From that perspective, I find the more ‚low res’ evf on the A7c ii to be more comfortable to use. While video on that sensor is beyond any doubt, with stills, I‘ve struggled on both cameras to get the raws right, i.e. realistic, more often than not. Counterintuitively, the highlights are more malleable than the shadows, and the greens tend to be rather harsh and hard to bring back into line.

Nothing beats a jet2 holiday.. I mean Chinese prices. Brand new S5II for only $1100

I wonder why they didn't use this sensor for Burano. FX6/9 target market is mostly ENG and documentary and events and weddings and things like that. None of them doing this stuff say I want 8k30 from 12k sensor. Why not give them A9iii global shutter sensor in a lighter body than fX6 and modern menu with a bigger screen?

A very good example of why used beats new yet again. The sony a1 is now cheaper than the rumoured Sony a7 V at £2999. So there you go... Absolutely zero reason to buy an a7 V 🙂

I’m in the same boat. Trying to time it so that the Sony A1 price vs features hits the sweet spot. I think we’re nearly there. I always talk about the Japanese auction sites but again, right now there is a promotion on Buyee and Mercari with 15% off coupons. Not sure about shipping and import tax to the UK from Japan but it’s still a great deal right now. Found one private party with very low shutter count and light photo use. $2,781 after the 15% discount applied. tempting…

For those web content creators who consider 8K a bit mushy for Youtube work🙂