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As many of you will have guessed, I’m not a rich teenage kawaii girl so take my opinion on this camera with a grain of matcha. What I am though is a member the unspoken demographic for it which is the jaded old photographer with a bad back. So I’m not her, I’m not you and you aren’t either of us so I’m predicting your mileage will vary wildly. Which is a good thing. I enjoy it for what it is, a genuinely pocketable holiday camera that makes me take silly snaps with far more frequency than I would do with a “real” camera because I’ve long since understood that holiday doesn’t mean assignment. Anyway, some silly soft, noisy snaps I took with it. Could I have taken these with my phone and at likely better quality ? Of course but the question is would I? No, because getting my phone out of my pocket and wrestling with it like a wet fish when I see something interesting is not my idea of using a camera.

Really sad if he has indeed given up on YouTube. He's still on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/mattiasburling Maybe we should ask him if he's alright?

I have this camera since its release in late 2023. The G9II is lightweight, has better IBIS and video details rendering (in 5,7K/Open Gate only) than the S5II, S1II and S1RII (with non raw modes) and lenses like the small 20mm f1.7 II are really fun to use with this camera. I'm not tempted by the GH7 because the 5,7K/Open Gate mode of the G9II has very nice detail rendering, so I don't need the Prores Raw of the GH7. But to be honest, I think the best image out of the box comes from the GH6, colors are the best I've seen on a Panasonic camera. The GH6 with the 25-50mm is something else, even my S1RII doesn't look as good. For now the cameras I use the most are : The GH6 with the 25-50mm (insane rendering) and the 25mm f1.2 (pretty nice and soft look at f1.2 even if the colors are a bit muted). The G9II with the 20mm f1.7, the PL 12-60mm and 100-400mm. The S1II with the 35mm f1.2 DG II (only in Prores Raw). The S1RII with the 50mm and 24-70mm S Pro. The Z6III with the 50mm f1.2S/35mm f1.2S and sometimes the Batis 135mm f2.8 and 35mm GM (only in N-Raw).

Incidentally, FujiFilm have announced a new instax camera today that is already boiling the piss of many people in the same way as the X-Half does. It’s basically a video focused version of the Instax Evo but retains the printer and is based on their Fujica cine cameras of the past. The dial on the side let’s you choose the era of look that you want to emulate. So it shoots video which transfers to the app and then it prints a key frame still from it complete with a QR code on it that people can then scan to download the video from the cloud. It looks beautiful and based on my experience with the X-Half, if they made this with that larger format sensor (sans printer obviously) then I would be all over it for all the same reasons as I love the X-Half.

Ok, first 2 week trip behind with the ZR, 35mm F1.4, 50mm F1.2 and 135mm F1.8 Plena and here are some thoughts about the ZR. First the good sides. The ZR screen worked well enough for nailing focus and exposure, even when shooting into shadows in bright daylight, but you may want to max the screen brightness. Zooming into the image with the zoom lever was handier than with Z6iii plus and minus buttons. Even with screen brightness maxed occasionally battery lasted about as well as Z6iii with it’s EVF on normal brightness. Had to use 2nd battery only a few times during 4-5 hour shooting days in cold, 0 to 10C conditions. Brought also the Smallgrip L cage with me, but did not use it, as it makes the ZR body taller than Z6iii and about similar weight. Even with 1kg lenses ZR felt quite comfortable to use and hold, but as a climber my fingers are not the weakest. I missed the Z6iii EVF a bit, but used now also different shooting angles and heights more due to the bigger screen being handier than EVF for that. 32bit float saved the few clipped audios I had pretty well, even though I don’t know if it is true 32bit pipeline from Rode wireless go mic to the ZR. Still, the audio sounded a bit better than what I have gotten with Z6iii and Rode. Exposing clips with R3D NE took at first a bit more time than with NRaw, but by using high zebras set to 245, waveform, and Cinematools false color and Rec.709 clipping LUTs it was quite easy to avoid crushed blacks and clipped highlights. R3D NE has manual WB, so I took always a picture first and set the WB by using the picture as preset. It worked pretty well, but not perfectly every time. Shot also NRaw in between to compare, but used auto A1 WB for it. It seems the auto WB did not always work perfectly either, but it was relatively easy to get R3D NE and NRaw to match WB wise in post. In highlights R3D NE clips earlier than NRaw and it was clearly seen in the zebras and waveform. Still with R3D NE there was not much need to over expose and even with under exposing I needed to use NR only in a couple of clips, where I under exposed too much. On last year’s trip with Z6iii, when it didn’t have the 1.10 FW yet, that improved the shadow noise pattern, I needed to use NR in many clips, until I realised I could raise high zebras from 245 to 255 without clipping. With R3D NE and NRaw 4 camera buttons and one lens button was enough. I had 3D LUT and WB added to My menu and that mapped to a button, so it was quite fast to change display LUTs or WB. WB mapped directly to a button or added in i menu won’t let you set the WB by taken picture as preset. WB se to i menu let’s you measure the white point and set that though. In post I preferred the R3D NE colors over NRaw in almost all of the clips I took, except in few clips where NRaw had more information in the highlights. Changing NRaw to R3D with NEV to R3D hack brought NRaw grading closer to R3D NE, but they were still not exactly the same. NRaw as NRaw seemed to have more blueish image in some of the clips due to the blue oversaturation issue it has, but the NEV to R3D hack fixes that. Then the bad sides. After coming home I picked the Z6iii, looked through it’s EVF, felt all of it’s buttons and thought, this is still the better camera, a proper one. Z6iii has also focus limiter and mech sutter which both I missed during the trip. The worst part became pretty clear after every shooting day. Not the R3D NE file sizes itself, but the lack of software support to be able to save only the trimmed parts of R3D NE clips. Currently Davinci Resolve saves the whole clips without trims, even though NRaw works just fine, and Red Cine x pro gives an error during R3D trim export. If you happen to fill 2TB card a day with R3D NE, you need to save now everything. I saved like 6TB of footage from this trip when it could have been only 600GB. If this does not get fixed I could as well shoot NRaw with Z6iii and get rid of the damn ZR. Changing trimmed NEV files to R3D does not work either, as Resolve does not import the files. ZR is fun to shoot, no doubt about it, but it’s R3D NE workflow is almost unusable at the moment, at least for my use.

That's really unfortunate. His Vimeo is still up, and his Instagram too, though they haven't been updated recently. His content output decreased a lot once Gunpowder passed, but he had already been less active as I think he became more and more disillusioned with the entire YouTube/Filmmaking/Photography scene. I hope he is well and creating the art that he loves.

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!

Of course they know how powerful this anti-fascist tool is and will try to make it unlawful, or an excuse to kill. As the SS saying goes that Kristi Noem is so fond of... "One of ours, all of yours" BTW has anyone ever tried logging out of YouTube, enabling UBlock Origin and putting a few choice keywords into the YouTube home page? It is incredible what the 'other side' is seeing and the sheer amount of propoganda Google is feeding them. When there's the equivalent to the Nuremberg trials, the Google execs should be taking the stands and going down with the rest of the fuckers.

I shoot in uncontrolled conditions, using only available light, and shoot what is happening with no directing and no do-overs. This means I'm frequently pointing the camera in the wrong direction, shooting people backlit against the sunset, or shooting urban stuff in midday-sun with deep shadows in the shade in the same frame as direct sun hitting pure-white objects. This was a regular headache on the GH5 with its 9.7/10.8 stops. The OG BMPCC with 11.2/12.5 stops was MUCH better but still not perfect, and while I haven't used my GH7 in every possible scenario, so far its 11.9/13.2 stops are more than enough. The only reason you need DR is if you want to heavily manipulate the shot in post by pulling the highlights down for some reason, or lifting the shadows up for some reason. Beyond the DR of the GH7 I can't think of many uses other than bragging rights. When the Alexa 35 came out and DPs were talking about its extended DR, it was only in very specific situations that it really mattered. Rec709 only has about 6 stops of DR, so unless you're mastering for HDR (and if you are, umm - why?) so adding more DR into the scene only gives you more headaches in post when you have to compress and throw away the majority of the DR in the image.

It would take more than a Ronin to stabilise that government at the moment.

Truth bomb spat out right there and unique to you, to me, to others as our situations and needs are all different but unless you actually get out there and shoot shoot shoot, you’ll never truly know what works. And what does not. Probably always will be other than perhaps AI etc might/probably will fill in the blanks.

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!

Unusually, Petapixel and DPReview have found a backbone and posted some interesting stuff in relation to the Minneapolis protests. https://www.dpreview.com/interviews/6336791578/john-abernathy-pierre-lavie-protest-photographers-ice-minneapolis-thrown-leica Imagine for a moment if smartphones and this Leica didn't exist. All we'd have to go on is the lies coming out of the federal government and they'd easily be able to smear the dead and do the big cover-up operation they're attempting to do now. But the images all around social media tell a different narrative. And I for one commend the bravery of the folk on the streets with their cameras. The truth is constantly being debased and it really took the biscuit last week with Trump's denial of British and NATO troops service in the Gulf War, Iraq War and Afghanistan. They were on the front lines and gave their lives for it. To anyone still thinking of voting Reform in the UK, or for those who voted for Trump at any point, surely your eyes are not still CLOSED after what you are seeing in recent weeks? If yours are, I'd be fascinated to know why.

If anything good comes out of this, less dependance and less monopolies would be a great thing. [UK switching to Chinese tech in 3,2,1...]

I hope someone is able to reach out and check on him, and let him know that he's missed. He was a rare gem on these forums and YouTube; he was just someone that enjoyed sharing his passion for video and photography. He wasn't trying to sell anything, or get free stuff, he just loved sharing. There was a purity to that, and it's severely lacking these days.

I struggle myself with using US services at the moment given that our data could soon (and might be already) in the hands of a neo-nazi government. In terms of the ethics of it, I'm also disappointed with the behaviour of the American CEOs and how they have brown nosed the nazi President like a bunch of pathetic losers. It leaves a very sour taste in the mouth and not just for them. It does make me uneasy paying for YouTube Premium, Google Gemini, Apple iCloud, Adobe Premiere and Netflix, actually it makes me more than uneasy, it makes me sick. But unfortunately our leaders in Europe barely know how to use MS Paint, and have over the years completely dropped the ball on tech. So there are no decent alternatives, not really. That said, the UK & EU gets a bad rap for what it's created. The best of European technology is the most complex in the world from ASML and Zeiss. Without their EUV lithography machines, TSMC, Nvidia and Apple would not have their fancy chips. They'd be reliant on Intel fabs and old processes. Any more funny business from the US admin and the Dutch should fucking remind them of that. Also the British invented the WWW, RISC architecture for CPUs and smartphones, not to mention ARM. We've not done so badly, we've just failed to commercialise stuff properly and let the American venture capitalists snatch it away from us. If it is political and that's why he's taken the channel down, he's missed a big opportunity to publish a video saying so, and directing us to his new channel on a different and more ethical Tube. It's a real shame just to pull the plug entirely without even so much as a goodbye. But then, maybe he has good reasons to... I don't know. I just rather hope he's ok.

I had been searching awhile back for one of his videos I remember watching a few years ago and couldn't find it. He might just be pulling out of being online. I know several friends who have done that, (usually to stay sane.) Maybe he's not into photography anymore in his life. I don't think any of his videos were at all political, they were always about photography and his personal philosophy about it. The thing I got the most from his videos (aside from some pretty thorough reviews of equipment) was him saying that it's okay to go back to a place and take the same picture again and again, improving it each time. This was good advice for me. I guess I had some idea that every picture should be original. (Don't know where I got that idea and wasn't even conscious I held that belief before he helped me change it.)

I just read a report that in retaliation to Greenland threats, European leaders are planning to introduce trade blocks with America, and part of that is a potential voiding of American patents. What could this mean for the camera industry? Suddenly everyone can put compressed raw into their cameras without having to argue with RED? https://en.people.cn/n3/2026/0119/c90000-20415649.html "The mechanism would allow immediate retaliation, including punitive tariffs, market bans, financial sanctions, and the suspension of U.S. patents and licences, without recourse to the United Nations or the World Trade Organization."

I still wish them the best with their Eterna sales to anybody other than a few rental houses. Other than 4:3 recording and more professional I/O, the much less expensive GFX 100 II has the same output. Also, the autofocus in video is a bit ass on it and unlikely to be much better on Eterna. 😅 But you know, if you have some 1.8x anamorphics that cover a 44mm wide sensor that you've been champing at the bit to use or if you really wanna go overkill on your social media presence, that 4:3 mode is probably killer. 🤣

Nice! The other thing to consider when testing ISO and noise in the final image is the delivery part of the pipeline. If I shot in two different modes and then processed them differently in my NLE, I might be able to tell the difference between them in my NLE. But no-one except you is watching your footage in your NLE, so you'll be exporting it, probably to h264 or h265, and you might not be able to tell the difference between them at this point. If you're going to be uploading them to a streaming service, then that service will decompress, process (NR, sharpening, who knows what else) and then brutally re-compress it. Lots of things are visible in the NLE and are completely gone or mangled beyond recognition in the final export or stream.

Just a note to say that it would probably be worth doing some tests ahead of the event. Situations like this involve many variables and most often people don't consider all of them because they don't do any methodical tests. You are assuming that the AF will work differently between different picture profiles, but I would suggest the AF would be operating on the image before the picture profile is applied, so it shouldn't matter... but, once again, you should test this to confirm. Another thing to consider is if you can push the shutter angle to 270 degrees or even 360 degrees. If it's a worship setting then making the footage seem a bit more surreal might be appropriate, and you can get another half or full-stop of exposure this way. You should also test NR in post - it's not ideal but it might give a better result overall considering none of your scenarios are operating in the cameras ideal operating range. I've done a lot of shooting with cameras at/beyond their capabilities and when you're pushing things you're trading off the drawbacks of each strategy.

Would it be worth quoting Genesis 1:3 as this would solve the high ISO need… (with apologies)

Digital zoom is definitely an underrated feature of these higher resolution cameras. On my GH5 I used the 2x punch-in on my 17.5mm F0.95 to get 35mm and 70mm FOVs, and on my GX85 I used it with the 14mm F2.5 pancake lens to get 31mm and 62mm FOVs in a pocketable form-factor. The crop function on the GH7 is different and a bit more restrictive. You get continuous zooming, but only to the point where the resolution you've chosen is at/near 1:1 crop into the sensor. So, if you've got the 14mm lens on there and you're shooting in C4K, you enable the feature and it pops up a box on the screen saying "14mm" and you can zoom in more and more by pushing or holding a button and it goes from 14 - 15 -16 - 17mm, but it won't let you go further. If you're in 1080p mode then it goes from 14mm to 38mm. Conveniently, if you disable the mode then it goes back to 14mm but if you re-enable it then it goes back to whatever zoom you were at previously, so it's easy to set a zoom level you like and then jump in and out of that FOV. My testing didn't indicate any IQ issues with it, in 24p mode anyway, so I think it's probably downscaling from a full sensor read-out. Not only is it really good for getting more FOVs from primes, but it's also great in extending the long end of your zooms too.

I don't regret jumping to full frame. The S5 and S5II X have treated me well and both are really good values. It was the right choice at the time, for a multitude of reasons. BUT if I'd known that the G9 II and GH7 were in the pipeline I probably would've stayed with M43. The main benefit for me has been the better low light, but these newer M43 cameras are pretty darn good at that. FF still has an edge, but it's not a huge one. I also don't typically do a lot of work where I need really shallow depth of field. Often times I'm closing the lense down to get similar results to what I got when filming on M43, except these lenses are much heavier and more expensive than the ones I used on my GH5, G85, and GX85 bodies. I could fit all my lenses in a bag and it didn't weigh much at all. The same definitely cannot be said for my FF lenses! The stabilization, to my eye, also looks a lot better on the G9II and GH7 than my S5 and S5II X. I hope Lumix keeps M43 alive and even gets back to innovating with the system. A return to smaller bodies, and possibly even smaller lenses, would definitely pique my interest. I don't know that I'd ever jump back into the system completely, but I could see myself buying a couple lenses and a body if it was compelling enough.

Ditto and it has been an absolute game changer for me with my workflow, especially as 100% of my clients what a result in ‘my style’, so effectively carte blanche. As long as I don’t do anything radically different…

Excellent insight, Thank you for the write up!

My advice is to forget about "accuracy". I've been down the rabbit-hole of calibration and discovered it's actually a mine-field not a rabbit hole, and there's a reason that there are professionals who do this full-time - the tools are structured in a way that deliberately prevents people from being able to do it themselves. But, even more importantly, it doesn't matter. You might get a perfect calibration, but as soon as your image is on any other display in the entire world then it will be wrong, and wrong by far more than you'd think was acceptable. Colourists typically make their clients view the image in the colour studio and refuse to accept colour notes when viewed on any other device, and the ones that do remote work will setup and courier an iPad Pro to the client and then only accept notes from the client when viewed on the device the colourist shipped them. It's not even that the devices out there aren't calibrated, or even that manufacturers now ship things with motion smoothing and other hijinx on by default, it's that even the streaming architecture doesn't all have proper colour management built in so the images transmitted through the wires aren't even tagged and interpreted correctly. Here's an experiment for you. Take your LOG camera and shoot a low-DR scene and a high-DR scene in both LOG and a 709 profile. Use the default 709 colour profile without any modifications. Then in post take the LOG shot and try and match both shots to their respective 709 images manually using only normal grading tools (not plugins or LUTs). Then try and just grade each of the LOG shots to just look nice, using only normal tools. If your high-DR scene involves actually having the sun in-frame, try a bunch of different methods to convert to 709. Manufacturers LUT, film emulation plugins, LUTs in Resolve, CST into other camera spaces and use their manufacturers LUTs etc. Gotcha. I guess the only improvement is to go with more light sources but have them dimmer, or to turn up the light sources and have them further away. The inverse-square law is what is giving you the DR issues. That's like comparing two cars, but one is stuck in first gear. Compare N-RAW with Prores RAW (or at least Prores HQ) on the GH7. I'm not saying it'll be as good, but at least it'll be a logical comparison, and your pipeline will be similar so your grading techniques will be applicable to both and be less of a variable in the equation. People interested in technology are not interested in human perception. Almost everyone interested in "accuracy" will either avoid such a book out of principle, or will die of shock while reading it. The impression that I was left with after I read it was that it's amazing that we can see at all, and that the way we think about the technology (megapixels, sharpness, brightness, saturation, etc) is so far away from how we see that asking "how many megapixels is the human eye" is sort-of like asking "What does loud purple smell like?". Did you get to the chapter about HDR? I thought it was more towards the end, but could be wrong. Yes - the HDR videos on social media look like rubbish and feel like you're staring into the headlights of a car. This is all for completely predictable and explainable reasons.. which are all in the colour book. I mentioned before that the colour pipelines are all broken and don't preserve and interpret the colour space tags on videos properly, but if you think that's bad (which it is) then you'd have a heart attack if you knew how dodgy/patchy/broken it is for HDR colour spaces. I don't know how much you know about the Apple Gamma Shift issue (you spoke about it before but I don't know if you actually understand it deeply enough) but I watched a great ~1hr walk-through of the issue and in the end the conclusion is that because the device doesn't know enough about the viewing conditions under which the video is being watched, the idea of displaying an image with any degree of fidelity is impossible, and the gamma shift issue is a product of that problem. Happy to dig up that video if you're curious. Every other video I've seen on the subject covered less than half of the information involved.

I agree with this 100%. More DR is great but it will be at the extremes of the image but all the magic happens in the middle.

Definitely; that's where the 12-35 2.8 and DJi 15mm 1.7 will show their strengths for me. The lenses haven't arrived yet, but the camera came with the 12-60mm 3.5-5.6 kit lens, so definitely in the ball park with size and weight. The thing is so darn light; it actually feels extremely comfortable and balanced attached to the larger body style. I could be fine with a sigma 18-35; funny thing is even that feels somewhat light to me, as I am used to having to carry around my Atomos Ninja V for anything 10 bit. Yes, yes, yes. The only reason I have a great idea now of what matters to me, is because at this point I've shot a lot of projects, and have done so on multiple different camera systems. So along the way, I've learned what matters to me. I'm not going to notice a 1/2 stop DR difference; some grainy footage (as long as the grain isnt ugly) doesn't bother me terrible. Sometimes I like it. But I do value great stabilization, as the way I shoot I end up spending a good chunk of my time finessing post-stablization to achieve the type of camera movement I want while keeping things completely handheld. I have a solid handheld technique down, but on most cameras it is still not perfect. I always hold the camera losely, usually shoot wide, and do a great heel-toe walk or body sway. But I always need to post-stabilize. I end up trying the stabilization options in Davinci Resolve. If that doesn't work, I render that clip out to Prores and import it to After Effects just to apply Adobe Warp Stabilizer, as it is a bit better in my experience. Once I get the result I like, I export. The beauty of the G9II is that when you combine the fantastic IBIS with e-stabilization high, I get quite close to the result I get after all of that post stabilization process...but this is just the footage out of the camera. It saves me a lot of time. And I can even add a drop of warp stabilizer on top to make it perfectly smooth. Another big advantage for me, its effectively doing what Gyroflow does but all internally and paired with the best IBIS ever. I've tried Gyroflow. I've used it on some FX3 footage I shot for my buddy's wedding film company. I've also rigged an iPhone to my Nikon Z6 as well as used the Senseflow A1. Its a nice solution. I figured I'd love it; its the same concept of what normal post-stabilization does (which I always use ALL THE TIME). Big difference is it is using true camera motion data; so the results should be perfect right? Well yes, but you need to shoot on a high shutter speed. And I found that even on the Sony FX3, where Gyroflow can work with IBIS on, the crop was often still fairly large. And the workflow is lengthy. With the G9II, I have a minimal 1.255x crop with e-stab on high, and because its working fully in tandem with the phenominal physical IBIS system, its very stable AND I can zoom the lens mid-shot and it works fine (can't do this with gyroflow on most setups). AND I can keep my shutter at 1/50 because the physical IBIS system is doing 80% of the work here. But yeah. Moral of the story is shooting lots and lots of stuff has made me realize what matters most to me. The G9II seems to really hit that. Again, I used the Nikon Z6 for 4 years. I've also filmed weddings on a Sony FX3 with nice Sony G master glass. I filmed very extensively for one organization with a Canon R5 and EF glass. This past summer I bought a Canon R7, then a Panasonic S9, then sold both. So I've tried enough cameras and shot enough to know what works well for me. I'd fully agree that a lot of what camera youtuber's claim are the big time differences are not always as important as they seem; for me, the wonderful IBIS of the G9II and the minor crop in e-stabilization is way more useful than a full stop of DR improvement when you already had great DR in the first place. Etc etc. This is a concert I filmed and edited this summer on the Panasonic S9. I haven't had a chance to film anything substantial on my G9II...but this is close. It's a super weird setup I sort of wound up with over the summer...The Lumix S9 with the Sigma 18-35...in the Super 35 crop mode WITH E-stab on high. So basically a 2x crop MFT level at that point. But I still found the image to be very nice. More importantly, with some careful walking, I got the images to be this stable and a lot of these shots have NO post-stab applied. Colors were very rich. G9II is even better because again the crop is lessened in E-stab high and the physical IBIS is better. And build quality smokes the S9; that was something I did not appreciate about that camera. A short clip from a concert I filmed, with the aforementioned Lumix S9 setup. Again, no post-stabilization. It is just so smooth. Makes all the difference with how I like to film. More handheld with the Lumix S9 setup. This has a bit less "gimbal-push-in" shots and a bit more regular handheld shots. With e-stabilization high, it has a perfect balance struck, where you can walk and move the camera such that it looks like a steadicam, or you can just handhold it for regular stuff and it looks as stable as a cine-cam weighted down. This wedding trailer was with my old Nikon Z6 setup. Combo of Davinci post-stab and Warp Stabilizer. Outside, I cranked my shutter speed very high to help. I used RSMB to add motion blur in post. While this worked, I had to spend extra time stabilizing in post and tweaking things if it was not perfect. This is all but eliminated now with the G9II. Also, half of this video was shot on a Nikon F-mount 24-85mm 3.5-4.5, entirely at f/4.5. I reckon that looks pretty close to what the Panasonic12-35 2.8 will look like; @kyelet me know if I am wrong since you've used that very lens I think? But anyways, its enough DOF for me. That being said, if you like more, totally get it. Nothing wrong with that. End ramble haha.

This is the first smartphone video I've seen that didn't shout (or whisper) that it was shot on a smartphone. I do get flavours of it being shot on something small and mirrorless because of the movement of the camera (if it was a heavy rig it would have moved differently). I'm pretty stoked actually, and can't wait to get a vND solution for my iPhone 17 Pro. I suspect that I might end up shooting a lot of street stuff on it just because the form-factor is so small and people are far less curious/suspicious of smartphones than real cameras.

A GH7 (or G9 II if it has unlimited recording and doesn't overheat) really would be my ideal camera. Even though I use the excellent kit lenses a lot on my two S5 bodies and my S5II X, it's still not as light weight as I wish it were. I don't really care about shallow dof and low light isn't nearly as big of an issue when it comes to the GH7 and G9 II based on what I've seen or for what it was on my GH5 cams. But it's hard to justify going back to M43 because I just don't have faith that Lumix is invested in it for the long haul. Everyone i know loves these two cameras, but they don't get the firmware updates that the full frame cameras get. For Lumix that's a red flag because they've always released firmware that gave new features and improved their cameras. I mean, look how long they supported the GH5!

Yep. As I’ve shot more and more I’ve determined what is importantly to me: A comfortable, balanced, somewhat lightweight body but that is built well and has a good grip Great stabilization. I shoot heavily handheld and often will use warp stabilizer a lot. I’ve got a workflow down to get good results out of a lot of different cameras with varying IBIS strengths, but the G9II with its superb stabilization will make my life easier Decent lowlight. That includes having a somewhat noisy image as long as the grain looks good. Decent autofocus. Benefits my very run and gun content like weddings. Good internal image. My Nikon Z6 setup taught me I don’t love rigging out my kit. I have learned to work around any camera that is weak in one of these areas. I’ve figured out how to make very different equipment work for me and work around limitations. It’s just the G9II seems to really fit the bill with what is most important to me. That’s where I really feel camera decisions matter. Not in the IQ. But in the usability. How does it feel to use. Does it have those practical features that matter to you.

Good choice. I think that film-making is about compromises and the more you understand what you're trying to achieve then the more specific you can be with your equipment selection. The "I'll being everything just in case" shooter does so because they don't know what they want and therefore can't make any decisions. The more I shoot the more I understand what I want, how I work, what challenges I face, and what is available, and the clearer I get on what equipment I should use and why. It's sort of incredible that even with todays offerings of 8K video and 240p slow-motion and 14+ stops of DR and RAW and all the lenses available, even if you had infinite money, infinite strength to carry and operate heavy equipment, there are still serious compromises that have to be made. The does-everything camera is still a wild fantasy, even for gym bros in the billionaire class.

Good call. I have spent years and years going back and forth between primes and zooms and in the end came to what should have been a very obvious conclusion and that is I need both. Depending on the circumstances. In an ideal world, I could do it all with fast zooms but fast zooms (faster than f2.8) are a rarity and come with the penalty of size & weight. I was debating (yet again) at the end of my most recent season the case for continuing with just primes (needs +1 body) or going back to zooms (needs -1 body) but there are compromises to both scenarios. Instead, I decided to go with the -1 body, but keep the primes and though it means a couple of extra lenses in my bag, that (and having to do a lens swap every now and again) is my only compromise. I took a very hard look at the G9II and I think if my needs were different, I might have gone for it (over the OM-1) but in the end decided I wished to stick with full-frame stills but would go back to shooting S35 for video. Which is what I am doing.

Settled on getting a combo of the Panasonic 12-35 2.8 II and the Panasonic/DJI 15mm 1.7! I figured 12-35 2.8 would be enough for a lot, and for the few times I know I need more shallow DOF, that 15mm 1.7 would give me a 30mm equiv which is a SUPER versatile focal length, while having very decent DOF.

Thank you. I’ve found it’s very possible. I hear claims online and even in-person of people saying “you just can’t replace a gimbal.” I mostly disagree. If you have a great shooting technique down and are smart to maximize your camera’s best aids to help stabilize the shot, and you then are smart about your post-stabilization if needed, it’s absolutely possible. I was able to get a lot done with my less-than-ideal Nikon Z6 setup. IBIS on that camera is pretty lens dependent with F mount glass. It was never as good as the G9II or S9 with e stab high. But it was still possible. You have caught on fast to my preferred way to shoot and WHY I like to shoot that way. I’ve used gimbals before and have worked with others who use gimbals a lot. To me it just feels like a heavy nuisance that gets in my way. I feel I can get shots faster handheld. I can quickly get vastly different angles, movements, compositions, focal lengths etc handheld. I still think ultimately the gimbal gives ultimate smoothness, particularly at long focal lengths. It is easier to pull it off there. But, you can get handheld very close and gain a massive weight and agility advantage. Sometimes I watch a popular camera review YouTuber or shill-tuber. I take a minute to actually analyze the shots they are getting. Some are talented. Others, I look at the actual footage and I’m like, this is fine. I could get that easily. Sometimes I like the stuff I shoot more than the stuff they get from a camera. Sometimes I even feel I’ve gotten better shots with my 8 bit Z6 than some of their stuff on the latest Sony FX2 or whatever. This is not always the case, but it’s happened. Anymore I care about cameras to make my life easier and speed up my workflow while giving me a shooting experience that helps me be more creative. For me, the G9II certainly does that.

@FHDcrew Cool clips. Doing smooth moves that are meant to be like slider / crane work while walking and using a small setup with just camera/lens/filters and no big/heavy rig etc is definitely at the edge of stabilisation tech, and your results look pretty good. The way I think about your tradeoffs are: When you get the 12-35 2.8 you'll get Dual-IS where the IBIS links with the OIS and you get an additional level of stabilisation, so that will up your results by another notch or make it a lot less fiddly in post to get the same results you're getting now The 12-35 will definitely have a deeper DOF wide-open than the 18-35 setup wide open, but none of the shots in those videos really struck me as being too shallow for the 12-35. They might be, but while you might lose some DOF, you're gaining stabilisation, so you might be able to get the same amount of stabilisation from a longer focal length on the 12-35 than you did on the 18-35 which will push towards a shallower DOF because of the constant aperture, so there are lots of things that are competing with each other here and 'all-else-being-equal' comparisons are misleading. Another trade-off people don't seem to talk about is that having shallower DOF might make still images look a bit nicer, but if your deeper-DOF setup allows you to shoot faster then you'll shoot more shots in the same situation, which will mean that you have more shots to draw from in the edit and the best ones that get used in the edit will be better simply because there were more of them.. so it's your edit having shots with shallower-DOF vs your edit having shots with deeper-DOF but being better composed, including nicer moments from people, etc. Continuing on from the previous point, if you shoot more shots then not only will each individual shot in the edit potentially be nicer, you'll also have a lot more options in the edit. This is something that is a huge dynamic in what I do (shooting travel) because it means I can get a greater variety of shots which means I can pull things off in the edit that I couldn't otherwise do. This might be a bit non-obvious to some, but if you imagine you have to make a 1-minute edit with only 1-minute of footage, then you have almost no options whatsoever, and although there is diminishing returns the more footage you have, sometimes in the edit you'll want to use one moment but in order to do so you have to have another shot that fits a very specific purpose and if you don't have that then you can't use the good moment (or if you do it will be clunky). So in this sense a really dull or even badly-shot clip can make your edit better by letting you use a great shot or have a more interesting structure or line things up with the music better to have a nicer ebb-and-flow to the whole thing. Elaborating still, the more stable your shots are in-camera, the less time you'll spend tinkering with them in post and the more time you can devote to finding a better audio track, doing more sound design, doing a couple more versions and smoothing over the rough edges a bit more, or pulling off a colour grading look that needs a bit of time to work out. People think MFT = deep DOF = less cinematic, when in realistic terms it can also be MFT = better stabilisation = shoot faster = more shots and more variety of shots = less work in the edit = more options in the edit = a better edit overall. If camera-bro YT has taught us one thing it's that shallow DOF doesn't make an edit great. Some of the best edits I've ever seen were made of exclusively non-spectacular shots. It's a bit of a blind spot because less-skilled people online don't yet understand about how things in pre impact prod, or how things in pre and prod impact post, and the professionals who work on film sets where people work in departments often don't understand the downstream implications because they just follow the guidelines of their department without understanding them.

Looks so good. Love how far the iPhone as come. Outside of lowlight I could probably shoot all of my client work on the 17 pro if I needed to...it looks very good in talented hands. Deep DOF is a vibe anymore. All the elements we need are there. Good color, good codec, good DR...boom.

Nice. In a sense, the fact that lots of modes on FF cameras have an APSC crop is a bit of a blessing in disguise. Not only to get a RAW file without insane resolution / bitrate, but it means that there are speed boosters for FF mounts. I think @Andrew - EOSHD has investigated speedboosting Medium Format lenses onto FF sensors, but my impression was that it's probably a difficult architecture to find combinations of equipment that won't vignette heavily or perform poorly at fast apertures. This is where the front anamorphic adapters can be useful, as I'd imagine there would be far more usable configurations from fitting a front anamorphic adapter to a FF camera + FF lens combo. The front adapters don't care about your camera mount / flange distances / lens mount / lens rear protrusion / etc, so in a way they're more like PL glass which you'd be able to keep and use regardless of what cameras you got in the future.

Seems similar to my priorities. Since getting the GH7 I haven't been jealous of FF except for my foray into 'night street cinema' where having crazy shallow DOF would be awesome, but it's not worth swapping over and thanks to adapters there are options for me. Yeah, everyone would be better off if they shot more. When you do it becomes obvious that our wants/needs are highly situational and you become more understanding when someone describes their wants/needs as being different to your own. Definitely agree with @MrSMW about just assessing the cameras on their current capabilities. TBH, the GH7 is more capable right now than most flagship cameras, when it comes to things that actually matter. There's a funny thing that happens when you write down what is important to you, then assess cameras against that. Things like 8K60 internal RAW somehow magically don't make the camera better at many/any of your actual criteria, but having 4K Prores HQ internally might. The list above from @FHDcrew is a good example of that. Then if you write down a list of everything you own that wouldn't work with the alternative camera, and think about selling it and then re-buying it again, you realise that getting a different camera with half-a-stop more DR isn't worth the thousands of dollars and weeks of work you'd lose selling and re-buying all your lenses, batteries and power management, cage and accessories, trips to the post office or courier, waiting for things to be shipped, assembling and troubleshooting everything when it arrives, learning new firmware and menus, doing a battery of tests to understand the sensor and colour science and codecs and how to treat it in post, then getting familiar with the rig to the point you can think about what you're pointing it at instead of what settings are assigned to which button etc. In terms of the G9ii / GH7 vs the S5 series, I wouldn't count on the MFT options being that much lighter, and it will probably come down to the lenses rather than bodies, which are pretty chunky.

Right now I'm mostly using the Canon's .71x speedbooster on my R50V - but before that I was using it with my R5C for years as a great way to access the cam's 2-5K RAW features (which are only available in s35 mode) while basically making it FF. It's just one of the many reasons the R5C remains one of the most versatile releases in Canon history.

I don’t know but do know that my S5 Smallrig cage did not fit my S1RII due to slight differences in the bodies.

I get the appeal. Full frame makes that look easy. The medium format comparison is flattering, not literal. M43 can still do it, but only by design, not by accident.

Fair point. I think that’s where full frame really starts to show its edge.

Wide angle and shallow DOF isn't for M43. Recently, I got the Laowa 28mm f/1.2 for my S5ii/S9. The rendering looks and feel like medium format. If your subject is 4-7 feet away, you get a really interesting look that is impossible on M43, showing plenty of context, yet quite a bit of blur. That lens is my indoor lens. I absolutely love it.

I think sometimes on forums and YouRube comments sections, too many get jumped on for wanting fast lenses with the often false assumption it’s all about getting the most shallow DOF possible, but for many of us, that is not the primary driver which is low light capability, ie, without the picture turning into a muddy mushy mess. Personally, I do like a shallow(er) DOF, but then for me it’s not a fad but something I have preferred for 25+ pro years. But not the razor shallow f1.0 in bright sunlight shallowness that causes all kinds of issues, more some clear separation and modest background blur rather than obliterated any and all context. Focal length can also of course remove said context so it’s all about balance and intent. In good light, outdoors, nothing much in it really but it’s definitely easier/more options with full-frame for low light. I don’t have anything faster than f1.8 for primes and no issues with low light.

Yeah I just figured why not embrace being on micro four thirds and use the small lenses I guess haha. But I DO need good lowlight for weddings and some concert stuff I do. G9II as Andrew said is good in lowlight. I rank it not bad. From my testing, if well-exposed then even ISO 12,800 is not too shabby all things considered. It does seem to revert back to contrast detect af at that high of an ISO though, or maybe that’s just V-log being b-log; I know log profiles in general aren’t always great with AF in lowlight. I may toy around with using cineD v2 in intense lowlight and running it through the same Davinci node tree I used to use with Nikon flat. Should still hold up better being 10 bit and I know to get a comparable exposure you don’t need to have as high of an ISO. I was unsure if I’d miss the extra two stops difference between the Panasonic 12-35 2.8 and the sigma/metabones combo. Same for DOF. But DOF isn’t everything. I think I’ll get enough with the 12-35. And I know I’ll just love how compact it will make the setup feel. And again the DJI 15mm 1.7 will sort of bridge the gap when I really need it.

Once they brought the price down it made so much more sense to me, $2k region was always asking just a tad too much for a Micro Four Thirds camera, at least that was the perception. But this now has the specs of a $6k camera, only it's a Micro Four Thirds size sensor. So even at $2k it's a good deal. At nearly half that it's a total must-have. In the old days, the smaller sensor lacked dynamic range, low light performance and decent autofocus. This is just not the issue it used to be, gap has closed up.

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.