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Welcome back! Can you tell me your name? Where are we? What year is it? Good, good... You've been in a DOF-induced coma for the last 7 years. We'll contact your families and let them know you've woken up - they'll be very happy to see you!

It turns out I am a bit wrong. ... That Micro Four Thirds was dead. Well near me, the G9 II came down to a much more sensible 1299 so I thought I'd give it a try. This thing... oh my gawd. Feel like putting the rest of my gear in the bin! This little box of joy is pure art in the handheld 4K/120p mode (and also in 5K open gate). The colour science, slow mo and IBIS are so, so good. The new GH7 sensor is quite something. Beautiful filmic quality to it. And I thought IBIS was good on the full frame Panasonic cameras or Olympus OM-1 but this is taking the biscuit now. You can just stand there and get a completely static frame especially in 120fps. I keep putting shutter at 1 second for long expose stills, pin sharp...The first camera that can really lay claim to being a tripod killer, in my view. Then there's the image processing... It totally defies the price. The new sensor just looks so clean in low light and dynamic range is fantastic. The real-time LUTs look stunning here. No other Micro Four Thirds camera has nearly as good colour processing (except the more expensive GH7), so in this sense I prefer it even to the Olympus OM-1 with the lovely Olympus skin tones. In some ways it is better than a flagship $4k full frame cam... I am not joking. Not missing a full frame sensor that much to be honest. It has the dynamic range, the low light, the resolution, and with a fast enough lens... the full frame look as well. The Metabones Speed Booster 0.64x fits without scraping the sensor-box. Also, the EVF is enormous and totally defies the price. Criticisms? Autofocus is very lens dependant - it's still a bit rubbish with the older stuff and adapters. Also no ProRes LT like the X-H2... With two SD card slots, it limits you only to 1080p in ProRes mode which is a bit silly... but the high-res stuff is available if you plug in an SSD via USB. GH7 has an advantage there for sure. But in plain old 10bit H.265 the image is superb. I think this body design suits the smaller lenses too... You know I'm not the greatest fan of the S5 II body design, well it is growing on me here... Micro Four Thirds and small stuff seems to go well with the G9 II / S5 II body design. It starts to make more sense. The sharp angles cut in less, camera as a whole is lighter, the grip is sufficient for everything and it's got that "GH2 feel" when you put the tiny 20mm F1.7 pancake on there whereas the S5 II with the larger lenses doesn't have that same charm to it. I am inclined to say Micro Four Thirds LOOK is back too... It's an antidote to predominance of a super shallow depth of field in commercial work and Netflix. It really makes me want to fully commit again to the system as it just does SO MUCH, far more than any full frame camera remotely affordable. It does more than a Sony a1 II FFS!

So in the end, I went with an R6 III. 🤷‍♂️ How did I end up here, you may ask. I originally wanted R7 and R8, but had a hard time reconciling their limitations (R7 = slow readout, crazy 4K60 crop, AF issues, shutter issues; R8 = no IBIS, tiny battery). So I was still stuck without a "hero" camera. Something I could use for handheld video in most situations, and for photo on the same job if needed. I decided to get an R6 II, due to the holiday discounts that I hadn't anticipated earlier, to get past all limitations. Though now, I'd need to get a Ninja V+ to get the highest quality out of it ($500ish used), but I was OK with that. And then I got a deal I couldn't refuse on a new R6 III, which would end up costing the same as the R6 II/V+ combo, while exceeding even their limitations. Grabbed a 28-70/2.8 STM and Godox V480C while I was at it. Everything arrived at the very last second, and I was able to use the combo for the Xmas Eve job I had lined up that same night (nightclub photo/video). Photo AF was about on par with my A9 in extreme low light (good but not amazing). Got hung up on too many unintended faces, so I turned off subject detection. Video AF was definitely better than photo (no noticeable wandering/searching), probably because it moves slower. Lighting was super dark, so I was at ISO 25,600 4K24 video/6400 photo + flash, but the video quality held up thanks to the second base ISO being close. Added Canon's own CMT LUT and some Topaz NR, and the video was good to go! Vs my old OM-1, it's not even a contest. R6 III feels like a decade newer. Even the IBIS is MUCH smoother with more natural movement, despite everyone constantly blanket-praising m4/3 IBIS. It's hard to make it look bad if you move somewhat deliberately (slow walking through a crowd), while OM-1 would twitch at random, no matter how smooth you were, even with plain old panning. And OM-1 would randomly lose video focus in much brighter situations than that night, no matter how large the focus box was. R6 III stayed in place through some absolute hell situations (nightclub strobes), though photo AF completely choked at that point. Wondering if it was the 1/8 mist filter causing AF issues (no noticeable flaring), but it doesn't matter. I got all the shots I needed, the client was happy with the output, and the R6 III roughly worked as expected.

Well for me it is taking me out of the film right away. I feel there is something off in each shot. ( color, dof, detail, dynamic range, bad lighting,...) So for each their own I guess, but this is not for me. As I am constantly wondering why each shot looks off and that is keeping me off the story.. (not sure if people with no film experience can spot it, I think they can). But just my 2 cents. The only film I ever saw that kinda worked that way was "the blair witch project" but they tell you in the first minute. This is the footage of some students that went missing in the woods" so I could give it an place.