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L10 update… Shot 5x wedding ceremonies plus their day prior & post events exclusively on the L10. Stills only so far… The experience and results have been great. Not S1Rii great or even S9 great (but in isolation more than good enough as a back up camera stepping up to do a job) the latter of which is supposed to be my back up camera but was in the shop being supposedly fixed…but as it turned out the fix was going to cost more than buying another mint used one, I bought another. Also one week long family adventure as my sole camera. Also perfect for that. However, now that I am back with 1.5x S9 camera bodies, I have decided to repurpose the L10 as; personal plus back up plus dedicated gimbal unit. Bought my 4th gimbal but this time determined to actually use and keep it…my previous issues being a combo of; reliability, weight, too much kit, user ineptitude…but as it’s an RS4 Mini with the tracking unit and L10, it should be a pretty sophisticated and lightweight unit. Only 3x more jobs that have video this year but at least it will be a good test ahead of 2027 where every job is hybrid. Should be GH7 level results, albeit with a fixed lens and the lack of IBIS the L10 has removed and improved…

I was very impressed with the results I saw from various people testing it. The GH7 sensor is good, the lens in the L10 is also good, and V-LOG and the codecs available are more than enough, so it should be a great combo. In terms of the lack of IBIS, that's definitely a thing, but if you're able to steady it with almost anything (tripod, gimbal, monopod, even just a large handle of some kind) then it should be pretty stable.

Yeah, “Unconsciously Stumbling Upon The Appropriate Lens Choice Since 1978” is definitely something I’d like to have as an epitaph.

I've shot a no budget feature film (partially) as a DP under similar circumstances last year. we had some permissions here and there to shoot in metros and train stations for a few hours, but mostly it was outside in the busy capital city. i'll share a still of it here, if somebody wants to see more stills I can DM a link, but at the moment I think it's best it mainly stays private considering the film is not finished yet. i do kind of think best to push back against the idea of total minimalism, or austerity especially in regards to crew. Other than the director and I, we had a 1AD, a PA, a makeup artist, sound guy, a focus puller, and on some days a grip or a gaffer (on the few moments we weren't just relying on available light). our director was someone who was frankly underexperienced and would generally completely abandon our preproduction plans, change the script all the time and was unwilling to listen to anyone else's suggestions other than the actors, which caused some tension from time to time. having these other people on your side to keep you in line can make this experience a lot more pleasant since it's hard to make films, no matter how small the scope is. this was shot on a largely rigged up BMCC6K with some SLR Magic primes, and mostly on a cine saddle. I guess we we're pretty lucky with not being bothered by strangers while shooting, other than having some random people staring at the camera in a wide shot. also the thing with walking around in a medium 2-shot is that it is insanely boring, especially for a visual language. there's a reason that doesn't really happen in WKW's stuff.

When I was younger I got some idea that all movies were made this way. I don't know where I got that idea but maybe heard something about the methods on TV. I was surprised that, after a long time in the indie film and video art world to then enter the world of the commercial conventional film industry and see the scripts and crew people all the work to make sure things go exactly as planned. (It kind of takes the fun out of it.) Wan Kar Wai's "look" really comes out of availablism. He was living there and went out and shot it. This was pre-handover Hong Kong where space was limited. The lights, colours and "sets" were already there. The art is in taking what's around you and framing it for a story.

Yeah there's definitely an "I don't care what you're doing" thought process in NYC but I think it's more of a survival instinct than anything else. It's actually quite odd. You can walk by someone, make eye contact and nod or smile and they will completely ignore you. I'd imagine if you lived there you'd get used to it, but it seems like you're alone in a sea of people. But for filmmaking on the sly, that's great. Without knowing the exact concept (I'm picturing a Before Sunrise kinda thing) I stand by the idea of keeping a small footprint and understanding the POV of the camera in the story. As @Bioskop.Inc said, if you can keep the dialogue minimal, by utilizing the mood and tone of your locations, then all the better. Also make sure to get clean dialogue takes so you can cut to a different take and use the dialogue over it... eventually people will look at you as they pass by. Otherwise stay small and nimble and flexible with your locations. If you can make a scene work on a park bench instead of walking... even better.

So far, we have: The French Connection The Day Of The Jackal Escape From Tomorrowland Chubby Rain Woody Allen (Annie Hall, Hannah and Her Sisters, Deconstructing Harry) Lost in Translation I think this is a great list! I know that Sean Baker’s Tangerine was shot this way, but I’d rather not sit through another of his films. I've written a drama short. Two characters, 11 pages, lots of walking around town. I live in Portland and I’ve shot all over town before without ever once being hassled (except by some in a crisis of mental health). But I’m really more interested in seeing what kind of aesthetic choices might even be available to me when balancing that with coverage needs, moving quickly, and not attracting too much attention. I'm always so envious of New Yorkers for this very reason. You can fill the frame with sidewalk commuters and often no one will even bother to give you a second glance. I can’t think of any other US cities where this is true. Lovely screen grabs, Kye. If any of these were publicity stills for a film, I’d want to check it out. Especially the 68mm shots. Great mood and sense of place. I think that this quote sums up some of the decision-making that I am facing. I could totally go in there and “wing it”, just figuring out my shot as I went. But I want to rely on natural light, which means timing certain shots for certain times of day, and then that raises the question of how much planning I want to put into each scene, and ultimately how the visuals will compliment the story. I’d rather not lean too far into the documentary aesthetic. After shooting my last five shorts with my C70s, I’m actually thinking about shooting this film on a hacked EOS-M with c-mount lenses. I’ve been collecting them for a while and have three sets of primes, plus some great zooms. I’d personally put the aesthetic available with this (windowed) sensor and these lenses up against anything, I like it that much. I think the reason that no one really wants to do this is because it’s one of the most difficult digital cameras to work with, AND on top of that, the most difficult lenses to work with. But I’ve been tackling the challenges presented by these one by one, and I think I have them pretty well sorted. We shall see! Current plan is to hide a Deity PR-2 recorder with a lav on each actor and attach a timecode box to the audio input of the camera. Stabilize with a steadybag. Transmit the image wirelessly to a producer and make up artist in a car, along with refreshments for the actors. If I end up working with long zooms, I might give direction over a phone and provide a discrete earbud to each actor so that I could also monitor.

What are you trying to do? As long as you don't have a big rig with lights and a shotgun mic, then you should be good. I've walked around Philly and NYC and see plenty of people shooting video everywhere with gimbals and even tripods sometimes... although I wouldn't recommend that. The key is to look like a tourist and find locations where there aren't many people passing by, or it's so busy, people don't even look twice at you because you look like a tourist. And be prepared to move to a different location if you have to. Philip Bloom, hardly a narrative filmmaker, but his use of super long lenses gives him the freedom to be a little far from the talent. Separation between camera and talent can be a good thing if you're trying to steal shots.

I had ruled out the GX9 for some reason, thinking it didn't have IBIS, and then I randomly heard that it did have IBIS and so I got confused about why I had written it off, so hearing about the crop made me wonder if that was potentially the reason. 200Mbps is a great bitrate, especially for HD! I don't recall hearing about this. Yes - there's even a thread about it that just started! I haven't looked at it myself yet, but if it's a one-stop solution for film emulation then it seems promising. I've heard it's pretty slow still, but it's still early days and perhaps optimisations will change that at some point. For me, and this GX85 Super-16mm film camera project, it was more about the GX85 and me finding a place for it. I have equipment I like, shooting situations / scenarios I prefer to shoot, and images I like, and the goal is to find combinations that work well. This project has resulted in me successfully discovering and developing the combination of: GX85 plus 14mm F2.5 pancake lens at 1x / 2x / 4x digital zoom Shooting street scenes in uncontrolled / available light, hand-held, from waist height Passable S16mm film camera emulation for gritty images with a strong vibe I'm actually really heartened by the GX85 and will be testing how far I can push it in other ways. Emulating a S16 camera is a lot easier than a S35mm camera, for example, so I'll see how I go with that. I'm effectively done with the S16 film camera emulation but not done at all with pushing to get the most from the GX85.