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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🙂

Sell so did blackmagic. And the image from that camera is pretty amazing. Allthough I will never have an need anything above 4k.

I guess the third base ISO is just the second base but with heavy noise reduction, as its called Enhanced Sensitivity.

8k30p with oversampling and 8k30p in Super35. 16 stops of DR with triple base ISO.

Yeah I hope canon, sony or panasonic would just buy up ARRI just for its patents. Like Nikon did with RED (the nikon ZR looks amazing). If somebody would buy up ARRI and trickle down their patents in a 2K body they would own the filmmaker space and these camera's would fly off the shelves. (Event video etc might be a different game, where fast AF is more important, but heck these big 3 companies already have decent enough AF today as is). But sadly also a sign that the old ways of working is done for. AI will eat lunches, social media has killed traditional video jobs (artfull and skillfull). watching TV has declined, watching slop filmed with an iphone with crazy transitions and bad lighting has become the norm. (as it feels more real to the consumers, and I get that, but also sad to see jobs, careers and also art plummet). Even the actual movies that are being release over the last 15 yeras have been disneyfied. (cute animal, jokes, woke characters, ...) Not sure if anyone watched the new predator movie. The beginning of the film was great, and the ending was great, but man the middle part with bud, woke synthetics and the friendship arc just sucked.

If it wasn't before, there's certainly a lot of those in the Billionaire class that have pivoted to literally advocating for such, are on record wanting democracy to end, and using these tools now. Anyway, fwiw, I'm kind of amazed this niche that you've carved with internet 1.0 is still active. I guess some of us are old enough for that digital nostalgia.

R8 will have advantage for low light vs R7 being an FF camera, I did shoot R8 under summer sun in 4K in a beach and it was fine (more than 2hrs) but it does have temperature guage at slightly more than half way. Interior is fine for R8 as long you got those fan add on, my R8 hasnt shut down on me for overheating yet. R7 on the other hand is a beast in terms of long form recording, I hardly see the temperature guage showing up unlike the R8 even in direct summer sun, paired with sigma 18-50mm 2.8 you have pretty killer combo (or 17-40 1.8 to give u the FF look)

I had a go with an FX2 yesterday. The tilting EVF is great. As are all tilting EVFs.

Owner of an R8 here. Those big phat sensels and sophisticated AF will help you big time in low light. 1080p is very good, if you need it. I've had zero problems with overheating in indoor situations, but the body will get warm if you push it all the way to 2 hours of recording. Same goes for SD card. Remember that you can use EF APS-C lenses with the official adapter and that opens up a huge panoply of options for the R8 which were never available for EF bodies. You'll get the APS-C crop in video, of course, but it's still a great option. Since my R8 lives on a tripod I use mine with a venerable EF-S 17-55 F2.8. That's it. For video I need nothing more, save for some lights and a good Rode wireless lavalier mic kit. Minimal set-up, every good results. P.S: if you'll be swapping SD cards in long recording sessions and the camera has to remain on a tripod, avoid the R8. The SD card is placed on the bottom, so you'll be hitting your battery constantly. The battery door is the worst I've ever seen in any Canon camera irregardless of price. Go for the R7 and its side-loading SD card slot, in that case.

For a start nobody seems to be able to concentrate for long enough to watch what is being made. Boomers have movies on in the background like elevator music for smartphone scrolling. Everyone could do the industry a favour by un-addicting themselves from their phones for long enough to look up for 10 seconds and watching something long-form, challenging and not family friendly. But everyone is too exhausted and overworked for it, and they have children hanging around on tablets - you can't get the time as a couple to go out and watch Taxi Driver and you can't put it on at home either because it would upset the brats. It's a big cultural shift in the world and filmmaking is one of the big victims of it. It is strange as pre-pandemic, I thought cinema was doing well and there was that moment when Oppenheimer / Barbie were all that people talked about, and the F1 movie has done incredibly well, one of the biggest grossing movies of all time. Apple is spending billions on movie production. There are signs of life. Why is it that everyone seems to be struggling so much - well, it's just a typical industry recession, less demand, because put simply - there's just TOO MUCH CONTENT and too much competition from people's shitty phone addictions for the customer's attention.

Camera market is a total sideshow for Zeiss, whose main income stream is from EUV lithography machine lenses, as a partner with ASML -> TSMC. The iPhone CPU is etched into silicon using Zeiss glass. These big companies are interested in growth. They'd rather buy an unprofitable, but growing company, than a profitable but stagnant one. The Chinese might buy ARRI for the patents and branding. Only if it stays in German hands will they continue as a cinema camera manufacturer. That's what I think anyway and I could be wrong, we'll see.

Don't know much about the R8 but I did a bit of research on the R7 as I was looking for a C-cam to go with my two R5Cs. The reason I didn't go with it was that there was imo an usually high level of owners on one of the bigger R7 groups on FB reporting mechanical shutter failures. It was particularly troubling for a cam that wasn't even 3 years old at the time (this was at the top of 2025). Either way I have decided to stay away from it and am pretty close to grabbing an R50V for the time being.

Totally agree on this take. We use the 7IV along with an FX6 for doc shoots, a solid camera all around. It kind of just does everything really well, with an absolutely solid image to boot.

Yeah the whole nature of the business is changing rapidly. It's easy to keep pace when you're working in the YouTube world, but I can't imagine how tough it must be in the Hollywood circles.

Streamlining the regional division is an internal matter and shouldn't send uncertainty message to customers. But regardless of the recent event, its been known for years that they are more inclined to jettison businesses that don't make money or see no growth in horizon rather than saving a struggling business with god knows how much debt. Is it? Hollywood has audience problem, not a money problem. The number of shoot days in Los Angeles decreased, but its only in TV/Commercials, which is not necessarily a Arri market. Feature film shoot days are actually increasing.