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First day out shooting in Seoul. Here are some images. These are all frame-grabs, were ETTR, had a look put over them with Resolve FLC plugin, and I adjusted exposure on each (and contrast on the odd one or two) and that's it. I'm sure I will finesse them once I start editing for real, but this is essentially just looking at my dailies. Setup is incredibly easy to use thanks to the huge DR, AF is super-snappy, the 14-140mm zoom gives so much flexibility and I'm finding I'm using the long end a lot more than I thought I would. I'll post some video footage of it later, but I'm also finding that I can hand-hold at 140mm (280mm FF equivalent) and with the OIS + IBIS working together get almost no movement in the frame at all, and with a slight crop in post I'd get locked-off images. At anything below 80mm or 100mm the frame is locked and won't need any stabilisation in post. Incredible results.

Recently saw a second hand Sony ZV-E1 on a local online market place. Price was good and I bought it. Great video camera but lacks EVF. Same is true for it's pro oriented brother FX3. Typically those type of cameras are used with external monitor on professional shoots or with camera LCD display only when vlogging. If you like EVFs and want to add one, choice is not great. No external add-on EVF from Sony like the one Sigma FP has. Portkeys LEYE III modified with better loupe is the cheapest one at 450-500 E/$ but I wouldn't call it small. Then Kinefinity EVF for 1250 E/$. Great one but definitely not affordable. There is an obvious gap and need for a relatively small, high quality, affordable external EVFs for cinema / hybrid cameras. I was looking for quite some time on AliExpress for Mini OLED displays (0.39'' to 0.7'') as a building blocks for DIY External EVF. Usually they come with controller board with HDMI input too. Almost bought some components preparing to do some 3D design and printing around them. Surprisingly found an EVF ready to be used. This type of EVFs were designed to be used with industrial instruments and were on AliExpress for quite some time. They all had lower resolution and AV video inputs in the past. For the first time saw one with 1920x1080 resolution on a 0.7'' mini OLED display and HDMI input. Also for the first time this type of EVFs is targeted toward cameras. Price was good too at 230E/$ so I decided to give it a try. Received the EVF few days ago and am happy to report that it is better than expected. Here is the list of things that I like and few that I don't like: What I Like: High resolution 1920x1080 ( equivalent to 6 220 800 dot camera EVF). Cameras EVFs have 4:3 ratio to cover 3:2 frame + some black strips on top and bottom to display information like exposure and other camera settings. The sensor on this one has 16:9 aspect ratio. To get 3:2 ratio the EVF crops the image to 1620x1080. Still great resolution at the level of ~5 mln dots EVFs like the one in Panasonic S1 series. I see in the EVF exactly what I see on the LCD screen of Sony ZV-E1 minus peaking. This is a rather good thing. Solid, all metal outer shell, good, even great quality of craftsmanship. Eye cup is big, made from rubber and fits around the eye much better than traditional camera EVFs. Big and bright screen - has at least 10 levels of brightness that can be changed and controlled manually. Picture inside looks big and bright, quite easy to see. Smooth focusing / diopter correction ring. HDMI cable is integrated, ready to be plugged into a camera. HDMI cable looks to have good quality. No need of additional power or battery. It gets small amount of power (500mA) from HDMI. This is a huge plus for me. Has mounting thread, can easily be mounted on rigs or cages or even on camera hot shoe. Can be tilted and placed in any position you want. Another huge plus. I've simply put it on monitor holder for hot shoe, which is mounted on the camera cage. EVF sits higher and is slightly tilted. It also provides 3rd point of contact and add stability. I am able to hold the camera lower and closer to the chest, which makes it more stable when shooting. Optimal size for me ! Not too small and not too big. Relatively light. Another huge plus. Optics made of glass, look high quality. Great price for what it offers - 200 Euro ($) including shipping and taxes after some Aliexpress discount. Because EVF receives its power from HDMI you don't have to switch it on separately. It has its own ON/OFF switch but if you stop the camera, EVF stops too as it doesn't receive power from HDMI. This is very convenient because it semi integrates with the camera, you don't have to switch it on/off separately. What could be better: While loupe (optics) craftsmanship is high quality, optical schema is probably not the best. Seeing tower end of the frame and in the corners is kind of difficult. In photo mode EVF has to show picture with 3:2 ratio. It crops the display at 1620x1080 to achieve this ratio. Same is true for video. This is great because this way corners of the OLED display are always cropped and dark while picture in the EVF is still high quality and resolution is still great too. So you always look at a picture which is in focus from end to end and you can see the whole of it. Brightness control has many steps but goes only in one direction. Adjusting it when you want to make picture darker or go at the opposite direction is difficult. You have to cycle trough all settings value until arriving before the setting you were a moment ago. Brightness control button is too small and uncomfortable to use. Both are not huge issues because eye cup completely isolates your eye and cuts external light at almost 100%. Once you set the brightness level you rarely need to adjust it. It doesn't have the additional tools a pro external viewfinder usually has - like peaking, False color, zebras, etc. Because it takes power from camera and becomes additional consumer, battery is drained a little faster. Hard to say how much faster. I still prefer this compared to EVF that have their own battery. Picture is not as clear as in a high quality camera viewfinder. Native camera EVF receives video stream that already has noise reduced. Image on HDMI out from the camera is more like RAW video, lots of noise in the shadows at high ISO, some noise even at lower ISO. I guess the same would be with any external EVF, even expensive PRO ones. It's not EVF's fault. I also see sometimes some texture like noise, not sure because of this particular OLED display or because of the HDMI out stream. Overall picture quality is not up to what you see in a camera integrated EVF but it is close. Surprisingly noise in the shadows helps me better judge exposure and use successfully ETTR. I live in a PAL region but camera was set to NTSC to have 24fps. There was a lot of flicker in EVF image even when only natural (sun) light was available. Maybe this can be avoided with some additional camera settings. No such problem when camera is set to PAL and 25fps. Sometimes when adjusting brightness, EVF looses sync and doesn't display any image. Have to switch camera on/off one time and problem is resolved. Not a big deal but it happened once or twice. HDMI cable is integrated. A PRO EVF has just HDMI out socket and you can choose your own HDMI cable. This one can be easily modified IMHO. Size: L=~50mm; Diameter ~43mm; weight 188g with the integrated HDMI cable Overall I like it a lot. There is nothing like it on the market and especially at this price point. I am surprised it took Chinese manufactures so long to figure out that a good market for external EVFs exists. I prefer it over modified Portkey LEYE III because of the smaller size and no need to plug and charge another battery. I may buy another one. 🙂 Now my Sony ZV-E1 has an EVF and a great one too. 🙂 Here is the link: On Aliexpress You can find it on ebay too. Search for V780H EVF Here how it sits on top of Sony ZV-E1

It’s unfortunate that AI has such a weird issue generating hands as it would be ideal for the camera to also create something that looked more natural when it is doing the selfie stick removal. Aa it stands everyone is walking round in these videos looking like a 1970s Action Man with the gripping hands. Its an impressive camera though all the same.

Picked up a Contax Zeiss 85mm 1.4, my first 85mm, and I cannot believe I have neglected this focal length for so long. Absolutely loving it so far.

I see you all lurking in the shadows, secretly reading the rumors, too afraid to hit “post”... 😇 In just a few days, the new Lumix FF is set to drop—and rumor has it, we’re talking cinema camera territory. The Canadian YouTubers? Already in Texas and Portugal, probably under NDAs thicker than a RED firmware update. So... are we talking or what? Because let’s face it: after this one, it’s gonna be another six years—and at least one global event worthy of a disaster movie—before Panasonic releases their next cine cam. Built-in ND? Or are we chasing DJI ghosts again? Meanwhile, our cowboy filmmaker has the mystery box chilling on the hood of his pickup, right across from the light he’s testing:

Just like the Zhiyun light, they will come with silly fake leather trim and Cam Mackey's name plastered over every square inch of the camera, the strap, the case, etc. They'll also have a filter that you can't turn off that gives everything a yellow tint. The x model will come with a hat and it'll have built-in wheels and a special "X" button that makes the camera itself start doing sick burnouts in the sand. There will also be a special Gerald Undone edition of both cameras that will have a special extra-super-hdr mode that increases the rolling shutter to 41.5ms. On this model, the leatherette will be purple. Finally, there will be a Matt Granger special pocket edition which is the same as a normal edition, but comes with some extra large pocket cargo pants.

I am going to predict not. I reckon it will be S5ii spec in a Sony FX3 style body and that's about it. Possibly a better built and beefier S9... Interested? 'Mildly curious'. I have literally just finished packing up my van after updating software, resetting all the settings and clocks etc on all my kit ahead of this seasons opening event. I have ZERO interest in changing anything until this season is done and in the bag. Mid-season changes just cause problems!

Published by Canon (JP 2025-040484) a month ago... «To provide a compact imaging optical system that’s wide and fast.» The prototype coming (or is it mere proof of concept for patent purposes?) would be for a 24mm f/0.7 from those white papers announcing they have worked out «a long-standing challenge in lens design» but according to Canon rumors, any RF f/1.0 lens is then just arriving around the corner, very likely.

This is a topic that comes up in this forum frequently. I don't think you'll get any argument from the majority of people here that there are a number of sub-$10,000 cameras that will get you really close to Arri quality. But for a majority of Hollywood productions, they're not reaching for this camera. As I said in another message above, it's extremely polarizing among people who have used it. If your use case is shooting an hour-long oner and you can run 14 takes of it to choose your favorite, it may be the best cinema camera on the market. If you're shooting nature, it's a pretty awful camera - lidar autofocus doesn't work that far out and the focus motor can only go about an inch past the lens mount, not to mention that balancing a lens longer than 130mm or so will definitely put you over the 4th axis' weight capacity. If your use case is putting the camera on sticks and using Arri Master Primes, it may be the absolute worst camera on the market. I'm not even sure that they could be mounted, even using the Flex + a cage to add rods. It's a really cool niche camera that is finding success (and will continue to find success, I think) for specific use cases in Hollywood... and in my own short films too. But if people at Arri are losing any sleep, it's not for the DJI chicken head camera.

LX10 in photo raw is very nice. If it had 10bit HLG for video, it would be a perfect pocket camera, even moreso with an evf. I don't enjoy slippery phones for taking images, billions of people do though. I love the 24 to 70 F1.4-2.8 zoom on the LX btw. A 24 to 50 zoom coupled with a 1 or 1/1.5" sensor would be nice and a mechanical focus wheel as well. Afaik only a few phones offer the latter. Is that right? Are these your shots? @Andrew Reid Nice images and colours. @Cosimo Colors remind me of GH2 palette when in use of skilled hands. Old school digi vintage look by oldschool 8bit masters like Martin Walgren or Andrew Reid.:) That reminds me how much of imagelovers GH2 users were when creating their pieces. I barely find any good stuff shot on recent cameras. The destruction of vimeo didn't help that I guess.

I have said before on here and I'll maintain it, DJI's taking one of the smartest plays here. Especially on mid-high end productions, regardless of any other factors, it's going to stay primarily Arri. If you make a traditional camera and try to compete, you'll have a huge uphill fight. On the other hand, if you make a camera that takes something that's a pain in the ass, whether it's Arri or another decent camera system, and your thing makes it really easy, your camera might get used in parts of films that are shot on Arri or Burano or similar. Putting cameras on a gimbal is legitimately annoying. Wanna have that gimbal-based camera track subjects? Time for hacks like putting a second camera on the gimbal and needing to use multiple tools to track and monitor. One of the Ronin 4D's real superpowers is integrated tracking based on what the camera is seeing. Today, a friend and I shot some tests with mine while between blocks at a local film festival. In the first, I experimented with an "impossible" shot where I tracked her walking and then had her pause while I pulled the camera back, planning to do a faux dolly zoom by reframing in post. It's imperfect, but with some practice and a less ambitious distance, I think it could play. For the second, I recently got a Hydra Alien and wanted to see how it would work. My car is a worst-case scenario for rollers - the Wrangler has an extremely stiff suspension. Yet, after 40 minutes of stumbling around with putting the Hydra on my car for the first time ever, I mounted up the camera and had my friend drive while I operated. There are some micro-vibrations, certainly, and I might experiment with the alternate/softer shock plate, but it's kind of amazing how turning on autofocus + tracking on a random car on the road resulted in such great footage. The last shot was to see if I could do a Tarantino-style shot spinning around the subject. If doing this on set, I'd want to set up something to ensure a consistent distance to the subject(s), but similar to the others, given the results after doing no planning or setup, the results are a bit unbelievable for just getting to the parking lot and saying "Hey, I bet we could do this. Let's try!"

Thanks for the link! I stand corrected - so that's about $25k instead of $30k by my above estimates. That's a surprise about the 6K vs the 8K version! I suppose that'd also be a great counter-argument to people who complain about cameras with rolling shutter speeds > 20ms. The 6K is 22 or 24 or something like that. Gladly! Here are a few off the top of my head (some codecs/frame rates may vary with the 6K, mine are based on my 8K): - Recording modes are either a mediocre H.264 or a very nice ProRes HQ or ProRes RAW. There's nothing in-between. The 6K has 4444 XQ available if you don't buy the raw license. The 8K does not. - To record in the nicer modes, you need to buy DJI's overpriced SSD ($800-1000 for 1TB), it doesn't matter if you have super fast CF Express cards. - You can choose from 17:9 (full sensor width) or 16:9 recording modes and nothing else... unless you go to the high frame rate mode when it will go to 2.4:1 (or something around that) and nothing else - When the 4th axis is enabled, if you have it set to "lock" and you're standing still, sometimes it has some sort of freakout and the gimbal starts going up and down like crazy. Numerous people have reported it on various forums, setting it to "follow" seems to result in fewer freakouts. This seems to have been around since the start. It definitely happens with mine. - There are tripod mount holes on the bottom, but even a narrow Arca-Swiss plate partially blocks the 4th axis cameras/depth sensors, people have complained that this makes their 4th axis work weirdly. I have just avoided putting a plate on it since most of my uses for it don't involve putting it on sticks - The object tracking is really good... most of the time. If it loses the subject mid-take, it is difficult (and it might be impossible) to re-select it on the touch screen - The autofocus is really good... sometimes. Sometimes it seems to lose the subject (even when in tracking mode) and drift to infinity. Then it picks them up again and comes back. It's also laggy. This is less noticeable with wider angle lenses and when stopped down a bit, but it's clearly visible with a 75mm lens at f/4. If I set it on a box on a shelf in my living room and walk slowly toward it, the label on the box will become unreadable until I pause for a half second and then the AF catches up - that's even with the AF sensitivity set to high. I noticed this at first when experimenting with a tracking shot using a 90mm Summicron-M at f/2. I bought the DJI 75/1.8 since native lenses focus faster than mechanical lenses and turned off AMF so the only motor would be the lens' focus motor. Still visibly out of focus when approaching/retreating. The lag when stopping is less than the manual one, but it's still there. I stopped down to f/4 or f/5.6. Still visibly laggy. If I use their 17-28 and zoom to 28 and stop down to f/4, the label stays acceptably sharp - but so far, I don't see any way to use AF if you want the subject sharp while approaching/retreating. Trying to dial in focus in those instances using the thumb wheel is too fussy for me (it's like 3mm of turning from 1.5m to 4m away, the look is similar to the AF with the subject in focus at the start and end and maybe for part of the walk). This weekend, I'm going to experiment with a friend to see if it can do better with a person. If not, looks like that 75 is getting sent back next week. Professional productions probably address this with the 3 channel follow focus (add another $900). - The first-party Sony E mount is actually made by a third party and doesn't update firmware through the body like every other part, you need to do it separately. Many people think it doesn't work well for this reason. - The internal microphone is completely unusable and has lots of high-pitched motor noises. Many people say that the XLR ports on the port expander plate randomly stop working. I think the 3.5mm input is reliable, but for a run and gun shoot, this is very limiting for audio. For me, the internal mic has been at least been good enough to sync up audio to an external device. Then I mute that track so I won't get a headache. Timecode works when available, but you will need the expansion plate for that too. I'm sure that I could add more if I spent a little more time thinking or I wrote this up after the next time I have it out on set. If you read any discussion thread of people who have used it, you'll find that it's an extremely polarizing camera - a number of people who have used it hated it and described the whole thing as an ordeal - and the others generally loved it. I'm more in the latter camp.

If just one of these ^ happens, it would be ossum 🫡

If the rumor’s true and they’re dropping two new cameras, I’m not even that fussed about how they differ from each other. I just want to know how they plan to make them stand out from the S5II and S5IIX. How are they gonna explain that to customers? Just the 60p crop? Seriously, how do they expect all these models to survive in a market that’s getting tighter by the minute? And it’s not like they’re Canon, Nikon, or Sony. Beats me, feels like a magic trick at this point.

Visited Jikjisa Temple yesterday, which was founded in the year 418, and looks straight out of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Everywhere you turn there are compositions that make you gasp. The main challenge with full sun like this is the high contrast scenes, and then grading them so they don't look faded and also don't have half the image almost while or half of it pitch black. This one has slightly more contrast than I'm happy with, but it gives you a sense of the look things start to drift into. When I'm grading them for real, I think I'll likely use large power-windows and pull things down or up using those. As a reference, here's the kind of shot I'm talking about where the contrast ratios are just overwhelming. The information is all in the files, so I'm capturing it all, I just have to pull it out.

That general blackout of a couple of days ago reaching two-digit millions of people for half a day was creepy enough to say the least... First time ever in half of a century of life. We are nothing without modern life or too little. Looked to be part of a movie. Don't want to know what genre is. EAG :- )

The latest rumor is they are releasing TWO cameras: S1ii and S1iix - the latter I presume more video oriented. I really hope they use the Z6iii sensor (as speculated) and that the S1iix is a more compact form factor, with no EVF, bigger fan, no IBIS and a thick OLPF.

And the footage from it, when shown, also looks like all of Cam's other footage. At least now the mindless YouTube zombies won't have to write angry letters to Panasonic that they should send a camera to CM "so we can see what it can really do."

Thats a really nice find. The lack of power requirement and small form factor makes it ideal for cameras like the S9 etc and the BM cameras like the Micro but also for the Pocket4K. It doesn't really have to be the absolute pinnacle with all the bells and whistles as a lot of the time with something EVF less like the S9 etc as you just need it as an add on for when shooting outdoors. I'm surprised someone hasn't been buying these, slapping their own logo on and selling them on for twice the price. CineFran would've done exactly that if he hadn't moved on to barefaced retro console emulation scamming.

This seems to be the clearest frame of it. It's not really giving much away, though.

Does it exist a camera whose image technically falls apart nowadays? 😉

I agree. Chapter 3 was the best. Bar none. But even if we don't like the story (I don't love it either), the reality is that millions of viewers swallowed the show with gusto. That does not happen if the technical image on the 80 inch TV falls apart.

I've been hearing/reading opinions that the way the story would have been perceived by the audience wouldn't have changed all that much if it featured more traditional cuts, and that the gimmick of the oner was just that, a gimmick, to show off the marvel of technology and the immense talent/coordination of the film crew. (The exception to this being episode 3 with the session between the psychologist and the teen. The continuous take suited that scene the best.)

what people who are not in the industry (and that is not to say that i'm some bigwig or whatever), is that this is just not a concern in the first place. the arris work fine 99% of the time, but for this gimmick show, the dji was going to be more efficient to work with, as you can see in the BTS where a bunch of specialised crew members all carry the camera in some specific silly way. which brings me to my point: - a mini lf or a35 rent for about a 1000/day without any discount (and if you're shooting 20 consecutive days at least, you're getting a big ass discount per day). multiply that by 3 and thats the your camera package with lenses accessories, a van, a magliner, etc. - now look at the imdb page for adolescence, and look at the camera and electric dept, look at the quantity of people in there. those people don't get discounts, you will probably have to pay them overtime, and can they ask somewhere between 300 and 1500 per day each. - now look at the quantity of the rest of the crew. if you do a bit of math it seems to me like that camera package is fairly insignificant on the budget of an 'industry' production.

I have one on the way after looking at the image samples here: https://www.gsmarena.com/xiaomi_14_ultra-review-2683p5.php The 75mm F1.8 lens in particular... Like some of the famous Zeiss Distagons it has a floating element to get close. With such a fast aperture in combination with the close-focussing abilities make it look incredible. The 14 Ultra in fact has two such lenses, a 75mm and 120mm. And the main imager is 1" Which also in the close-to-mid focus range has a very shallow DOF. I have lighted tweaked that last one in Pixelmator Pro, the JPEGs have a surprising amount of chonkiness to play with. Then there's the RAW capabilities... With Motion Cam Pro there's the RAW Cinema DNG recording. Within Xiaomi's own camera app is the expert RAW mode for stills, with Leica's colour tuning. This allows you to completely turn off any noise reduction and sharpening... one of the main caveats of modern smartphones. I think at £600 used this is the real deal. The 15 Ultra doesn't change things very much, indeed to go any better would require a big leap. We're talking at least Micro Four Thirds size sensor instead of 1", and F1.4 maximum aperture. And to make this pocketable is going to require a lot of physics bending. There are some other options like the Oppo Find 7 Ultra, and Vivo X100 Pro which have a large 1/1.4" sensor on the telephoto lens, 200MP. But the lens quality itself is a bit compromised as a result. The Vivo X100 Pro has the Zeiss modes, Zeiss lens simulations, even RAW video built into the main camera app I believe. But I find Xiaomi's image processing with Leica to be the best of the bunch. Looking forward to when it turns up from CEX this weekend with the photography kit which gives it ability to use filters and a proper shutter release button! I think for street photography requiring stealth, 3 lenses in one pocket and very high speed, this is a better choice than a proper camera, X100 VI or Leica Q. The ultimate shot getter?

Nice shots. With the telephoto modules on the 14 Ultra they benefit from 3 things: - Computational side - Fast apertures - Very close minimum focus distances As a result, especially at the closer focus distances the small sensor look disappears. The apertures are fast at F1.8 and F2.4 which for long lenses is impressive especially as they are the size of postage stamps in your pocket. The computation side has also taken a huge leap. On the main sensor there's so much more depth information and a shallower DOF to begin with which helps the bokeh simulation to be much more convincing. On this shot of the car it has just embellished a bit the background separation which was already there at 1", F1.63. It really is an extraordinary shot getter in every way. Fast, tiny, wide range of Leica modes and you can create so many different styles of shot in a couple of seconds with a few swipes. It is the moment for me when I realise that traditional mirrorless cameras and especially the lenses aren't long for this world.

Weren't a lot of the most influencing and creative films ever made done with equipment significantly less sophisticated than all of this modern stuff? So... I don't get too wrapped up in the new fangled gear. It's all rather incredible, realitvely, tbh.

I think that last set is nicer, although i can't tell you why. i know its night and i expect it darker. I'm not entirely sure that its being down to night is the only reason they are nicer. You've done something different in your approach to grading or the initial video i think.

1+8 pro with Helios 58mm on a steady tripod, 226mm FF equivalent.

Defocus Test: 1+8 pro with Vega20mm @f2 wide open (78mm FF equivalent) Vs canon 5D3 with Lomo 75mm @f4

Just had a look at some stills from it, and yes, much darker than my other references. I looked through all the John Wick franchise, as well as some other action series too, and one way they can make these things all look dark is just have them all set in night-exteriors or interiors without visible daylight. I think there's lots of tricks like this. For example, I read an article on how movies often look "larger than life" which has many factors, but one was that there were almost three times the number of shots that were taken below eye-level as those at or above eye-level, so most of the movie was literally looking up at the characters.

Nah, they will pass, but then these are night shots rather than day so would expect them to be darker 😝 I re-watched The Batman yesterday. Last time was big screen with French subtitles 🥸 but at home on this occasion and that movie I think is a great example of ‘dark’ for reference.

Just came out of watching Sinners in IMAX. What can I say? Its a good movie, I really liked it a lot and I would highly recommend it. Cinematography 12 out of 10. Acting 10/10 Story 9/10 - I would give this 10/10 if I didn’t think it was slightly inspired by dusk till dawn. If you don’t think so… 2 criminal brothers flee south to some bar to fight off vampires… [SPOILER ALERT] 1 brother is level headed and the other one is off…in both movies there is a girl that is forbidden fruit where the brother that is off wants that forbidden fruit. In Sinners the forbidden fruit is a white girl (black guy in prohibition time), in Dusk till dawn Quentin Tarrantino (yeah he acted in his own movie) was the creep that wanted to fuck the 16 year old (the forbidden fruit). Look… there are some sequences in this movie (sinners) that you’ve never seen before and that alone makes you forgive the inspirational notes and thats why its still a high 9 out of 10 for me.

Pretty stable and even with the post stab, not a huge amount of cropping going on 👍 I'd say FF Lumix is about the same level with S5ii.

Edited and uploaded the stabilisation test video. Test of how well the GH7 and 14-140mm combination is able to stabilise hand-held footage. GH7 was using the Boost IS mode, which is a more stable version of IBIS (but it doesn't do electronic IS, that's a different mode, so this mode has no crop). My hands were more shaky than normal when filming this, and the first shot was standing up without leaning on anything, and the second shot of the hotel was sitting down. Results aren't perfect, but they're good enough for my purposes.

I don't mind at all, I mentioned it partly to raise the topic as I'm not sure about it. What I need to do is to get a bunch of references and study how they distribute the DR of the images into the final grade, so I can get a sense of things. A bit like how cinematographers get an understanding of levels and ratios, using false colour or a light meter. I pulled a few reference stills from the movie Perfect Days which is set in Seoul to compare: and some from Kill Bill vol 2, as it's a bit more contrasty: and The Matrix, because it's got that feeling of the matrix not being a real place, which gets to the idea that Seoul is like a world unto itself: or The Killer has quite a dark grade to things: There's something about the rich dark areas, and having rich dark colours that I'm chasing, but obviously I'm yet to work out what it is and how to get it. Works in progress though!

I think I ‘need’ it… More (exclusively actually for me) for stills than video. 2 years ago, I was running around with an S1R + battery grip + Leica 24-90 as my ‘one & done’ stills unit. It had 3 principal faults. 1. Weight; it was 2.8kg in the hands. 2. Using an APSC crop on the 47mp sensor, I could extend the focal length to 135mm with something like an 18mp file but that was not quite long enough for my needs ideally needing something within the 150-200mm range. 3. F4 at the longer ends which is a bit slow for a 90mm lens. Roll forward to 2024 and swapped that rig out for a trio of f2.8 zooms on the Sony A7R5 with the heaviest combo being approx 1.75kg with the 70-180mm, but that lens being a tad long for more general use. Sigma offer their 28-45mm f1.8 which primarily for indoor use would be PERFECT for my needs, but lacks a longer companion such as a 45-90mm f1.8, but even this would not give me the reach I need. Step forward Sony with this constant aperture f2 50-150mm. Does it cover all my focal range needs? No because it starts at 50mm, but covers everything beyond and then some because with the 61mp sensor on my A7R5 and APSC cropping, I can reach 225mm with a 26mp file. Is it big? Yes, but not ridiculously so and it is internal zoom and unless it’s a short extension, I can’t abide long zooming lenses. Is it heavy? Yes, kinda…and more than the 1kg self-imposed limit I would prefer but it covers 50-‘225’mm. At f2. Without extending. Or lens swaps. It would be approx 2.5kg in the hand as a combo with the baseplate I have on the A7R5. Three criticisms: 1. Why white only? Some of us would prefer to be more discrete and maybe they will follow up with a black one or someone like Alphgvard will have a skin soon? 2. No Arca Swiss built into the detachable tripod foot. That’s a bit of an oversight IMO. 3. Price. Despite US trade tarrifs, it’s still more in the UK and EU than the US… At least according to launch prices. So will I be getting one? I think yes, though it may have to wait until next year when they are beginning to appear on the used market, for financial reasons but I don’t think I am going to see a better option than this in my working lifetime. One & Done? Nope, but I have my Nikon Zf with 20-40mm f2.8 for the wider stuff and 40mm f2 for candid when I don’t want to be poking a white canon in peoples faces, plus if I ever decided to hop over fully to Nikon bodies, this new lens will work adapted on say a Z8 no problem.

A few more from today, in Hongdae. Even less grading than yesterday, but trying to lean into the contrast and deep shadows more.

It's been forever since I've read up on it, but I'm pretty sure it was used because they were limited in how long they had access to locations. It was also an extremely ambitious film with a small budget. I wouldn't call using it to film an entire episode "very sparingly." But the point I'm making is, for the better part of 25 years people have been talking about how the industry is going to change every time "attainable" cameras are used to create a notable piece of work. "It's going to disrupt the industry." It never does, though. It's not that I disagree with your main point; most people wouldn't know the difference between something shot on a GH5 and an Alexa, assuming it's competently made. It's not like the millions of people watching the season finale of House that was filmed with a 5D Mark II noticed a difference. But that's not the reason most of the industry refuses to switch over to these more affordable, but very capable cameras.

Just waiting for the price of this AF 14-24mm f/2.8 beauty... https://www.lksamyang.com/en/product/product-view.php Who else?

I hadn't considered that.. if it comes in clear your could do the lens as well. Bonus points for the all in one glow / blemish remover filter. Wedding photos will no doubt sell like hotcakes !!

Why stop with spraypaint? Hose that sucker down with line-x and never worry again about scratches!

Your welcome 😉

Thank you, that's great info. They used the 6K model which costs a measly US$5,000. The 6K US$9,999 model includes a very decent T3.0 lens. Again, for Hollywood, that's less than drinks on a Friday. There's some more technical info here ---> https://ymcinema.com/2025/04/16/the-heroes-of-adolescence-dji-ronin-4d-and-cooke-sp3-32mm/ We're about to see come huge changes in the industry now that hegemonic power are being shifted. The camera industry is not impervious to that huge seismic tech shift.

FWIW, if you watch the BTS, they were most likely over $30,000 on the camera package alone. I'm not sure if it was specified whether they used the Ronin 4D 8K or 6K, but I'm assuming the more expensive one. $10,000 - camera $5,000 - lens $280 - focus motor $400 - DJI transmitter Then add in the set of master wheels that I saw in at least one BTS photo and at least 3 high bright remote monitors + handles that I saw in another. $10,000 - DJI master wheels $1,700 - monitor (x3) $730 - handles (x3) And then add in the car mount and a drone strong enough to carry a 15 pound camera, and it's not out of the question that that all would total about $50k. If your definition of "serious film project" is $1m+ budget, then that is indeed a small portion - but it definitely ain't cheap. I can also say that as an owner of a Ronin 4D and a person who loves it, it would not be my choice if I could pick only one camera. To say it has quirks would be the understatement of the century. As a second camera? It might be top of my list. And I'll be in that "wave of new pro and amateur projects" filmed with one - for the feature that I've been asked to shoot, it'll likely be UC12K as the A camera and Ronin 4D for most of the handheld, car-mounted stuff, faux-jib (Flex mounted on a monopod), etc.

That is some stability Kye! Various Netflix and other productions should take note; I hate all this super handheld jittery stuff.

I think personally that while I can make the 24-70 & 70-200 combination to work for me, a lot of the time something in-between would be useful, as I mentioned before, in portraiture. In the 1980s and 1990s, there were still a lot of lenses with intermediate ranges such as 50-135/3.5, 75-150/3.5, 35-135/3.5-4.5, 35-105/2.8 etc. but somehow these disappeared and standard zooms started at 24 mm and telezooms at 70 mm, 80 mm, or 100 mm. In portraiture a range that is between the two (24-70 and 70-200) would be ideal. I think the reason why 24-70 became the standard "pro" zoom is that when the first digital SLRs came with 1.3x, 1.5x, and 1.6x sensors they needed the standard zoom to have shorter focal lengths, so instead of a 28-105 or 28-80 they would make a 24-70 and 24-105. Of course, then came lenses like the 17-55/2.8 specifically for 1.5x / 1.6x sensors. But anyway the 24-70 range stuck and now some photographers would consider a zoom that starts at 28 mm too limiting even "useless". This I don't agree with, and I'd be happy to have an in-between range zoom such as 50-150 or similar. To me this sounds a very practical lens and not at all weird. However, the f/2.0 maximum aperture does make it a bit big and heavy and I can see the objective is to replace primes for some users. If it becomes popular, perhaps they can make an f/2.8 zoom with a similar range. The f/2.0 makes the lens expensive as well. I notice a 4600 EUR initial price in Finland (incl. 25.5% VAT) vs. $3900 (not including VAT) at B&H. This seems absurd considering the tariff situation, it's like they slapped on the price increase from the tariffs on both regions instead of just where it is actually applied. I think it's completely unrealistic to expect most European customers to even consider this lens at a 4600 EUR price point. I would expect the price to fall rather quickly if Sony wants to sell these lenses.

Apparently one of those people on the fence was me? So far, I like it. Views from the 8K mode might be enough to use as quick inserts on a 4K timeline without being overly jarring. The 71 megapixel photo mode is really pretty good too. I shot the thing below into the sunset. The tree branches near the setting sun don't look awful and there's some detail on my face. I just need to remember to hold the selfie stick more casually so the hand is less noticeably funky after their software subtracts it out. The image SOOC (as below) isn't too bad. It'd probably only be a few minor tweaks in curves to get the look as I'd like it. Pureview HDR seems to introduce artifacts on things that are moving more than a little bit. Like holding the selfie stick at a 45 degree angle in front of myself, my feet looked a little weird as I walked. I'm still not sure about using the camera for more than inserts for anything serious, but if I can get over my shame at holding a selfie stick with a little UFO on the end, it could be a pretty great tourist camera.

I have been delivering in 14x9 (1.55:1) for a few years. With my new rig I will be narrowing that up a bit more, even, to 1.5:1 or 1.43:1 or maybe just 1.5:1. I'm liking the way 1.43:1 looks the most so far. Plus, Imax! The Panasonic frame masks are going to be really useful for this, particularly for my fisheye, where I will actually be cropping width and height. I just wish I could use the masks when reviewing footage.

Fortunately, I am a big Wes fan!