All Activity

Of course this is true; but the main business in photography, as far as the consumer market (and businesses that target it) is concerned, is selling gear and not the art or teaching techniques for making that art. The attitude in online forum discussions is that everything should be easy and automatic, and people are willing to pay significant money towards that end, but many people are not willing to accept that there is a skill component to photography. If skill is required to get results, the camera is considered flawed. People spend more time online complaining about (perceived) camera flaws and performance comparisons than learning the skills that they would need to do meaningful work. And the youtubers who talk about gear target this population who has been mislead to believe that if they shop for the next great thing, then they will become great artists. They get paid to promote gear, and have been misnamed "influencers" or so some such strange term when in reality it is what used to be called advertising. Somehow the social media "influencers" are supposedly more genuine and authentic than professional actors and models in advertising but this is really just an act.

I really don't envy you pros who have to go into who-knows-what situations and have to deliver professional results! Do you at least know what colour the acoustic tiles are? Heaven forbid that you go in there and they're all purple or green or something horrific..

I haven't been following him for very long so haven't seen a change, but I can tell you that I'd much prefer to hear the thoughts of someone as qualified and experienced as he is versus the gaggle / hoarde / confusion / seething-mass of "film-making" YouTubers that only know how to shoot a product review YT video! One thing I find in severe scarcity is people that have worked in professional settings and know how the real pros do things, that also know what it's like to make videos from idea to upload by themselves, and can also communicate it in a way that is clear and concise and doesn't have some sort of off-putting trait (like being an arrogant asshat and talking to the audience like they're morons - yes I am thinking of someone specifically). I also like the fact he's selling courses. The alternatives are that they do YT for a while but get no return and stop doing it, or they go full shill, or they somehow keep the channel going but you have no idea where their revenue or equipment to run it come from and so trust and credibility just erode over time. I wish more people from the industry would create a YT channel where they share their knowledge for free as advertising for their own courses. Imagine if Deakins etc had a YT channel where they did a 5-minute piece to camera per week!

I like Luc, but it does seem that since he started really pushing his paid courses the channel seems to have shifted emphasis from practical stuff to more talking head stuff.

I'm doing a b-roll shoot over lunch today for one of the documentaries I'm making this year (first shoot on this one, so looking forward to it!). I haven't been able to scout the room, which is a recording/rehearsal studio, but I do know that it's very small and that the walls are lined with those acoustic tile thingies. So I'm taking: 1 x tiny Ulanzi 40W bi-colour 2 x RGB wands 2 x Lupo 20W bi-colour Smartpanels 1 x Zhiyun M20 bi-colour 1 x FalconEyes RGB panel Also a bunch of pipe clamps, spring clamps, 1/4 20 magnet plates etc, plus 2 5-in-1 reflectors, one of them folded out to black. All battery powered. I probably won't use all of these, but I wanted to give myself some adaptability given that I'm going in near-blind. The look I'll be gunning for is classic split tone so I'll be setting up a daylight wash with the 40W light and using some of the other lights for warm accents. Camera set to 4300K. All of this fits in a single standard aluminium photographer's case from which I've stripped the foam, which is good because the camera weighs about 40 tonnes!

Saying "even the a6700 can look good" is sort-of like saying "even the cheapest Ferrari can go fast".. the a6700 is a very modern camera and high-spec camera. I can understand why you would say something like this though - you've been watching too much "camera YT" and have fallen prey to the two biggest hidden problems: Older cameras are invisible on YT, despite being the majority of what is used People that talk about cameras, or even mention them in the video or description so they're searchable, are using the most recent cameras, or relatively recent cameras. The reason for this is simple - if you shot a video with the Sony a4000 then you're obviously not into the "tech" so it's not something you're thinking about , and putting that in the description isn't going to benefit you because no-one is searching for a4000 anymore. However, the people making videos about anything else other than cameras might be using the a4000, the a3000 or their phone from 5 years ago. I recently discovered a woodworking / renovation channel I like shoots with a C100, which records 24Mbps 1080p but his YT uploads are in 4K and the image is basically flawless. It's over a decade old and you can get entire setups with lenses batteries etc for $500 or so if you snag a deal. The camera body is the most discussed film-making item, but is the least important Go watch almost any video that talks about camera equipment in a balanced way and they'll tell you that the camera body is less important than the lenses or tripods etc. Watch and video about film-making equipment in a balanced way and they'll tell you that the camera rig is less important than lighting or cinematography etc. Watch and video about technical film-making in a balanced way and they'll tell you that equipment is less important than location choice, production design, hair & makeup, etc.. Watch and video about creative film-making in a balanced way and they'll tell you that the technical stuff is important to get right, but is far less important than writing, casting, acting and directing, etc. So... the camera body is the least important item in the least important sub-category of the least important sub-category of film-making.

Yeah, it makes total sense. Cameras got really good over ten years ago so anything made in the past decade will be fine for most things. The differences will be subtle and to do with ergonomics and convenience of shooting. I have a ten year old Sony HD camcorder that works great! I could've upgraded to the 4K version of it but there's never been a reason for that (and the 4K version is bigger.) It's not the only camera I have but the idea of letting go of it never crosses my mind. It's too useful mostly because you just flip the screen open and roll. I think anything goes nowadays.

@fuzzynormal I couldn't agree more! Disclaimer: I'm also an old. I have moved from shooting GH5 and manual F0.95 primes to GX85 and variable aperture zoom as my default setup, despite owning complete setups for GH5, OG BMPCC, OG BMMCC, XC10, and Canon 700D with ML, etc. I much prefer the GX85 to the GH5, but for some reason I cannot fathom, I am drawn to the GF3 whenever I get close to my equipment. I also edit in 1080p (but upres this to 4K for upload to YT). I prefer to downsample in-camera if it's not a significant quality bottleneck. I focus my time and energy on colour grading, editing, sound design and composition, as is evidenced by my many threads on these subjects.

Your Luc Forsyth video is a perfect complement to this!

Agreed, great share. Now this video is just a single training session and not a narrative but only shot on the a6700 and 18-105 f4. Looks aesthetically pretty good.

Welcome to the party!

I saw that one in my feed but haven't watched it yet. I highly recommend watching the YT film-makers that actually do real work. They have a balanced perspective and speak from experience. Like Luc Forsyth, who has shot major network TV shows: Finding good people on YT is quite challenging now, because they tend to just use their own names and the good people aren't talking about brands etc all the time so finding them can be a challenge.

Yeah, I assume that too. I've always been conscious of this too. The only potentially impartial reviews are when the person buys it anonymously like any member of the public would, gets it the same time it ships to everyone else, then they put it through their paces. The other issue with "reviews" that aren't long-term reviews is that the person hasn't had the product for long enough to really test it. People like Gerald might know what shortcomings to look for and actively go looking for them, but no-one can test reliability in less than a week. I find the same issues with product reviews on Amazon etc - they are essentially first-impression reviews.

If you're fighting the sun then yeah, serious horsepower definitely comes into the equation!

Ouch. I love the cameras that I have from them, but they're going to need to clean up this shady garbage if they want my continued business. It's not that hard to spot the shills, regardless of sponsorship disclosures, but I still don't want to patronize somebody who is trying to hide it... partly because it's insulting to the intelligence to think that somebody with a day 1 video doesn't have a relationship with the company. I'll also note that iphonedo is hardly innocent in this regard as well. While his agreements with companies like DJI don't specifically remove his editorial independence, he also knows that if he's too critical of their products, the sponsor dollars will dry up. One can definitely see that he tries harder to be positive in his reviews of their gear than he tried, for instance, with the Karma drone that he mentioned. It's not a bad quality, necessarily, but just another data point to keep in mind when watching any of the reviews on his channel.

There's a lot more to the question than just which lights to use. If you're indoors and feel like you're fighting the sun and if the windows will be mostly out of focus in the background, you can just put ND gel over them - it's fairly cheap and fast. If they'll be in focus, IMO ND gels look a little bit like shit so that might not be your best option. If you're outdoors and fighting the sun, especially for close-ups, a collapsible reflector or two (or three if you have one which can give some negative fill) is often a lot better than trying to compete with the sun with your light. You can get a pretty big reflector for about $30 from almost any photo store in the world. Otherwise, short of going with really big lights, if you're trying to blast a light through a window and have it compete with the sun, it's going to have to be a pretty big light. In those cases, I'd probably try to find a way to shoot the scene differently. 😄 These days my main kit consists of 1xAputure 600X, 1xAputure P300C, 1xAmaran 300C, 2xAmaran 150C - as well as the B7C lunchbox, MC4 mini-lunchbox, and a few scattered MX's. It's more than enough for almost anything that I shoot. I'll probably continue adding some stuff here and there when Aputure have huge sales (their Black Friday sale is legit - I got a huge discount on the 600X plus a couple of bonus things). If I need to go bigger than that, I'm more likely to rent it or to just hire a gaffer to roll up with a box truck full of stuff. For shooting on the go, I just also put together a kit with 3xStellaPro's with their Bowen mount - they're tiny and run off of USB-C so I can plug 'em into a V mount plate or even a battery bank. Only disadvantage? Above 30% or so, the fan runs constantly. I'm excited to actually do a shoot with 'em. I also picked up a Molus X100 for the cases where I want somebody to hand hold a light. It's alright, but the reflector in the Bowens mount seems to do some funky things with my softboxes.

this guy is amazing. Love his process and personality. He also shot a full feature film.

great rant. Loved every second of this.

A very good strategy for getting the best out of older 8-bit cameras - I think Kye does the same (with a GX85). At the end of the day, unless you tell them, anyone who watches the final movie won't know (or care for the most part) what was used to make it - they'll judge it primarily on the story it tells, be it fictional or documentary, and whether it it's enjoyable/interesting/absorbing. If an old camera does the job and is enjoyable to work with, why not use it? Inanimate tools like cameras, lights and filters can help or hinder the art, but they can't create it...that needs imagination.

Well kinda disagree on this one. For me its about the look I can create with the lights, and during daytime I am allways fighting the sun. And 300w led lights for example dont allow much creative looks. Were playing with iso's you are just lowering or increasing exposure as is and not affecting the look in a dramatic way. Like popping the subject from the background. Not sure if you ever do flash photography, but I absolutely love the fact I can completely change the look of an image in bright sun with an flash. But yeah I dont like to deal with huge ass lights either an an one man band.

4k acquisition, 1080 delivery. Save for a few slowmo 240fps shots that require 1080 resolution, it's all 4k 24p. BTW, I had the GX85 for a stretch. Liked it okay. However, my favorite LUMIX camera is/was the GX7.

Capturing in 4k or 1080? I still have and occasionally use a GX80. I recently had a serious clear-out of my most of my older cameras - G6, GX800, E-M1 ii, LX7, LX100 - but did hesitate over the LX7, to the point where I did some video test shots. In the end the amount of jaggies/aliasing and no 4k weighed more heavily than the small size and reasonably 'premium' feel, so it went...

The 300w leds are great to have, of which I've used only the Aperture fixtures though. The 600D has a big footprint. Rather use a 2.5K HMI instead. But of course the Aperture is much lighter to rig and much less power draw and easily powered by regular circuits. Anyhow, 300w spot leds would be it on the top spots of the list. I also like the 100w amarans. Lightmats and tubes are super neat and easy to use. The amarans come in stronger versions now too. Havent tested them but seem to be great bang for the buck regarding light quality and usuability.

Disclaimer: I'm an old. Also, this rant is completely contextual to two concurrent projects I'm doing. I'm gonna blow some steam here. So, been making a no-budget passion project documentary with my wife and have found myself grabbing my (2017) EM10iii more than half the time to capture our 24p footage. We have a FUJI XT5 --as well as our (also long in the tooth) GH5 that specs wise does a lot better, but here we are running around with a device that is technically inferior. The issue is that it's not technically inferior by much when you get right down to it. For what we're doing, the divide between 8bit video and 10bit video isn't such a big deal. We're on manual lenses, and, honestly, the image from the EM10iii+our lenses is dang good. Paid $300 for this camera. Seems hard to imagine a cheap cam would be what's used over more advanced gear, but we are certainly doing so. Funny thing is, I can't rely on the XT5 (and it's admittedly gorgeous colors) because it overheats(!), and while I like the GH5 results, I don't like using the camera as much as I like handling the Oly. Perhaps it's a mix of things. Size, ergos, what we DON'T need from the feature set, knowing what'll ultimately work for our particular production, and a weird little feature of the Oly has (2x punch in) that the GH5 does not. Anyone else holding onto (and often using) old inferior gear because it's good enough and not really chasing new tech anymore? I'll testify without irony that we've achieved better footage with this little camera than another million dollar + doc film I'm working on which used an ARRI. Why? Because subjects in a doc don't really give a shit when it's a single unassuming shmo running around with a small modest camera like the EM10. People DO give a shit when they're in front of a giant rigged out ARRI and a crew of 9 self-important shmos flitting around with their serious demeanors and a gaggle of mobile video-village gear in tow. And people in a doc behave correspondingly: Not naturally. They're performative. I'm left editing a bunch of dry useless footage from the ARRI shoot. Additionally not much actual quantity of footage because they were so damn immobile. Lame. That's a hill I'll die on regarding doc film making. When filmmakers put their gear fetish above good content acquisition. Sometimes that requires big sophisticated gear, sometimes not. Gotta be honest with yourself about that. Anyway... Finally, the doc we're working on will be mastered in 1080. If anyone can successfully convince me that's not good enough for a doc screener, I'll entertain the argument, but 1080 24p is fine to my eyes. /rant.

like i sad. i got one zoom h1n, so... For me guys this is the best sound (until today) from exhaust in Tenere 700. A sunny and quick ride out to one of the beaches in my area. Kavala Greece. Turns, narrow roads, bridges and a crazy provincial straight that I reach top speed somewhere in the 8th minute. There is also an unexpected confusion from 2nd to 3rd gear in the speeds, a small thing. Here's the video