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Don't forget that there is a silent army of people who are making work for clients. I am in a number of private groups with professionals (shooting corporate, advertising/PR, etc) and things like open gate are absolutely critical for those amongst them doing commercial work. I thought that Cams video on open gate was actually really good and explained it well. Basically every camera argument is people saying "I definitely need the things I use, and no-one needs the things I don't use".

OK, we open a DJI drone shop in one of the Canadian border towns and Americans come across, buy one but only take the controller back with them. As soon as they are over the border they message us and we switch their drone on, put it on the roof of the shop and then they fly the fucker over the border themselves.

I think Lumix IBIS is the best, along with the original Olympus cameras. It depends on what you use it for but for me it has been the biggest change in how I use a camera over the last 10 years.

A timely piece as I’m looking to upgrade from my Fuji x-s20 in terms of bigger body, and I need better IBIS. Love the image but again hate the form factor and IBIS. Also have a 2019 6-core intel MBP so don’t need huge files or raw at the moment. Would the OG S5 offer me better ibis than my current kit? The thought of trying a GH5 is tempting as well as I would then probably have 500 I could spend on a couple nice primes, maybe more vintage glass.

Open gate for professional work is a real time saver. I had to film a series of interviews with football players for a bank here in Spain with was released in vertical and horizontal formats. 6K open gate gives so much flexibility. I vote for my Lumix S1ii as new camera of the year, for me at least. I think the Lumix S5 and S5ii are incredible bargains on the secondhand market.

Absolutely. I am a huge proponent of doing tests. Pick a lens and go out and shoot with it for a day, edit, grade, and export it, then watch it over and over again for a week or so and see how it makes you feel. Do it again. Do it with a different camera. Do it with a different technique. Pick a sequence of 5 shots and then shoot that sequence with several lenses, edit the sequences together and then compare them. Shoot a latitude test (the same shot but with each at a different exposure) and then work out how to grade them in post to match the shots. This will check if you have your colour management setup correctly, and will also show you the limits of your camera. Take a series of shots and lower the saturation on all of them, and duplicate the shots many times in a timeline. Then test every method you can find to raise the saturation again, label and export them. Over a week or so look at them, compare them, see how each makes the footage feel, makes you feel. Take the same series of shots as above, but try every LUT, try every method to add contrast, every way to apply a tint, every way to change WB, every way to add a split tone, every way to sharpen, every way to soften, every way to grade. Test every look.. film emulation, VHS emulation, etc. Test every resolution. Every way to add grain. Every way to reduce noise. Every aspect ratio. The goal is to learn how to see.

I think @MrSMWmeans the social media game. You can post all the content you want, but if you're not posting content in the way people want to view it (vertical) then you might as well not post it at all. The difference in viewership is massive, whether it's the algorithm simply not serving up non-vertical content or people just swipe away from it. If I can film something that can both be used for long form traditional content AND social media vertical content, then I definitely will prioritize cameras that allow me to do that. Open gate is very advantageous feature for those of us who have to create content for both.

Yep. Modern Panasonic full frame bodies make amazing super35 cams. I’d be interested in re-trying the S9 with the Sigma 18-35; found an EF lens adapter that does NOT force APSC mode….which means you can use e-stabilization high as a super 35 crop and get steady cam caliber stabilization while retaining the full Super35mm FOV…when I had the S9 I used a Viltrox adapter that forced the APSC crop with the sigma 18-35…so to use it on top of the e-stabilization high made the crop almost 2x MFT level…what’s crazy is the image was still very clean and detailed and lowlight was still good; noise was very organic and pleasing at high ISO even when cropped in so far. I only really disliked the build quality. That darn rear dial felt so flimsy. And hearing that they failed all the time…no thanks. I’ve pretty much settled at giving the Olympus EM1X a shot though; I believe the Metabones 0.71x does work with PDAF in video. I’ll be trying that first. EM1X + Sigma 18-35. If I hate it, maybe will get an S9 again. I’ll make a new thread with my thoughts when I get the camera. Gonna extensively test the 8 bit OMLOG400 as well as ProRes RAW to my Atomos Ninja v. So stoked to try this camera. Might be perfect for my needs. And seems build quality is apparently legendary top-tier on the EM1X. But yes, my Nikon Z6 OG as well as all of my F mount lenses and FTZ adapter were boxed and shipped to MPB the other day. Onto EM1X land.

I have my S1RII’s set up with: [4.7K] 4736x3552 (4:3) 50.00p, 300Mbps (4:2:0 10-bit LongGOP) (H.265/HEVC, LPCM) Why APSC when it’s a full-frame camera? INTERNAL zoom Sigma 17-40mm f1.8 which with the crop factor for APSC and for standard EIS, makes it a 28-66mm FF equivalent lens and all factors considered, this body with this lens, is a sweet spot for me; cost, size, weight, ergos, file sizes, quality, workflow/bake in my LUT, 1:2.4 pano crop for my films and 9:16 for my socials… The image out of the S1RII is superior to that of my S9 side by side when I shot them 6k. Every frame on a timeline, I can see which is which immediately. For me it’s camera of the year, no question.

I ignored their videos the moment he started a video with "welcome back peta-philes"... that was a poor decision!

I don’t know of anyone in my industry who does not shoot Sony. Except me, call sign Maverick.

Rental market very different to buyers market isn't it? The MapCamera one is interesting but is always heavily skewed to what just got released. I'm more impressed when I see an older camera like the a7c II at number 3. That's quite some sustained sales pattern... Or maybe not, maybe it just got a big discount sticker on it last week 🙂