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Chungking Express by Wong Kar-Wai Absolute masterclass in film making. Think it was shot in S16mm film, but the most impressive thing about the film was that he shot it in 2 weeks whilst waiting to edit Ashes of Time. The script/story changed whilst they were filming and they shot on location in Hong Kong. I think if you're going to write to make a film, keep it simple - if you look at Wong Kar-Wai's early films like Chungking Express, Fallen Angels, In the Mood for Love etc. - the premise is always simple/basic and they shine a focus on very few characters which really draws you in and with quite limited dialogue. He creates a mood and you should use the environment where you are filming to make it another character in the film, which complements the atmosphere you are trying to create in the story you are telling. Having filmed a lot for TV in cities etc. it really makes you focus on what you are trying to do and ultimately achieve - you've got to do things quickly and ignore what is actually going on around you, get the shot and be ready to be adaptable.

I've been thinking about lenses a lot over the last few years, and just to be cheeky I've put some observations into a framework. Level 1 is where we start - with zooms The normal start to using lenses is with zoom lenses, probably the kit lens. We know the thinking at this stage: its convenient, you stand in one place and zoom, hooray! Level 2 is what most YT lens videos are about - primes are better than zooms We all know the arguments. Primes make you "zoom with your feet", they make you learn about perspective, they're sharper, better in low-light, BOKEH!!!!1, you can learn the FOV and develop an instinct for it, vintage ones are cheap, "real photographers / cinematographers use primes!" There are approximately 1000 billion videos and tutorials explaining this, but this seems to be where the thinking stops. I've not seen that much stuff that goes beyond this, but this is really just the start. Level 3 is where understanding begins - zooms and primes have their uses Almost none of the discussion up until this point acknowledges that lenses create images, and images have aesthetics, and aesthetics are what is actually being discussed. Moving to talk about motion pictures now, and cinema especially, there is a bunch of nuance that Level 2 doesn't really discuss. People have decided that FF sensors are the most 'cinematic' and typically are used with FF vintage lenses. This means that the FOVs are 24mm / 28 / 35 / 50 / 85 / 100 etc, with maybe a 40mm in there if you're getting fancy. These weren't the FOVs of cinema though, because cinema was S35. So the FOVs of cinema using the 50/40/35/27/18 were really like 75mm/60mm/52.5mm/40.5mm/27mm. It gets stranger when you add anamorphic into the mix. If I go to B&H anamorphic cinema lens category and sort by best sellers, we get: - DZOFilm Arcana Anamorphic Prime 3-Lens Kit, which are FF and 32/45/75mm and 1.5x, so on FF they are: 21mm 30mm and 50mm - BLAZAR LENS Talon 50mm T2.1 1.5x, which is FF and equivalent to a 33mm - Sirui Saturn 35mm T2.9 1.6x which is FF and equivalent to 22mm If you're using the standard FF lenses on a FF camera, you are using the FOVs that stills photographers used, rather than those that cinematographers used. Shooting on S35 sensor size (or crop mode) with FF lenses can create some of these in-between FOVs too. People at Level 2 thinking probably won't be swayed by the above. I would imagine the thinking is take a step forward or back, what's the difference? Level 4 is where understanding begins to mature - enter the feedback loop The feedback loop is where you realise that the focal length changes how you shoot. A ridiculous example to illustrate it. You decide to shoot on only a 28mm on a FF camera, but when you frame up a close-up shot, the distortion makes the talent look awful, so you take a step back and now the footage feels more distant because we're not seeing the talents face so much because there are no close-ups. We all know about perspective from level 2 thinking, but the level 3 thinking was that taking a step forward or back was no big deal, so which is it? This stuff is subtle, but (like all feedback loops) it pushes us to act differently and this can create a cascade of changes over time. Level 4 thinking realises that this dynamic is powerful and pervasive. I shoot in public, so I don't control the environment. I discovered that if I shoot with a 35mm FOV then I can get environmental portraits of my friends and family from close enough that people won't walk in-between me and them, but moving beyond a 45mm I'd either get shots of them that were tight and didn't really show their environment that well, or I'd step back and be struggling with people walking in-between me and the subject, which is a completely different situation. How would I respond to this? I might shoot from eye-level instead of chest height. Now I've changed the shot angle because of a FOV change. If I shot from eye-level for a while I might notice that I get more attention and now I find that the people interacting with my subject are more aware they're being filmed and keep looking at the camera. Now my subjects are acting differently because of a FOV change. If I asked someone the difference between shooting with a 35mm and 45mm would they think it would change the shot angle and subject behaviour? Not with the Level 2 thinking of "primes are sharper! duh!!", or the Level 3 thinking of "just take a step back! duh!!". What about controlled sets? Sure, on a controlled set there aren't random people walking in-front of the camera, but now we're talking about actors and all the dynamics that goes on there. Can great actors deliver amazing performances while the matte-box is only inches from their face? Sure. Do YOU have actors that are that good? I don't think so. Can great production designers change a set to accommodate a camera being further away, while keeping the frame looking the same? We know that as we move the camera back the subject gets smaller in frame, and that as we do that the background gets smaller but not nearly as fast as the subject does. This is great if you are only filming the subject and don't really pay attention to the composition of the entire frame. But you're a talented cinematographer, so you want to move back a bit and keep the same composition, which means that production design needs to 'cheat the camera' and basically rearrange every item in frame that isn't in the very background. I remember shooting a student film in a cafe and every setup required moving the vase of flowers on the table the subject was sitting at. That vase probably used two-thirds of the area of the table! I watched a video recently where a street photographer tested a 40mm prime for the first time. They didn't know what to make of it, having only a week to shoot with it before they had to release their video review. What struck me wasn't that they didn't know what shooting with a 40mm was like, it was that they didn't seem to understand that there's a period of learning that goes on, they didn't understand that the feedback loop exists. I realised they had 'learned' each focal length by memorising its attributes (which Level 2 photographers will crap on at great length about), rather than having learned them for himself by following a process where you explore the feedback loop and see how it makes you feel and how it makes you act and how the world responds to that, and how you respond in turn, and how the loop feels and matures over time, and how to make the loop go faster etc. I recently spent some time in a small town in rural Japan and shot the same location with FOVs equivalent to 71mm, 82mm, and 100mm. I went out for a walk each night with one of those lenses, going out for perhaps an hour or two. Shots that were possible with one were not with the next, shots that were great with one were lifeless with another. As I walked down the same road from my accommodation seeing the same shots night-after-night and making different framing decisions with each lens (and deciding to take the shot or not to bother as it didn't work) I noticed that I made different decisions to walk one way or another as certain subjects required different FOVs and distances to make them. I've also spend a lot of time, over several trips, shooting night scenes with 68mm and 71mm FOVs. In some locations I can make some shots and not others, while in other locations I can take different shots. If I'm shooting across a road then the width of that road (combined with my FOV) determines the type of shots I can take. After taking a number of those types of shots I start to adapt to how I'm shooting these locations. The more I shoot the more everything feels different. Level 3 thinking says "just take a step back, what's the difference?" and when shooting in those situations the difference between a 35mm and a 50mm feels like it's a span where there are several complete aesthetics in-between the 35mm end and the 50mm end. Thinking about shooting a 50mm FOV vs an 85mm FOV feels like travelling to a different country where things look similar but feel very different in practice. I know I'm barely scratching the surface of Level 4, and perhaps there are levels beyond this that I'm unaware of, but it's just amazing to me that almost no-one seems to talk about anything beyond Level 2. It's probably controversial to say, but I deliberately avoid almost all stills-only people because the thinking seems so rudimentary in comparison to people who shoot moving images. You can feel the limited thinking and the "well, actually!!!!" responses where they miss the entire point entirely because one lens is sharper or something ridiculous. Anyway, hopefully this helps. I've not really heard anyone talk about this stuff, which seems a shame as the rabbit hole is very deep and to only talk about ankle-deep water seems silly.

"Cinema" over the last 130 years would strongly beg to differ in terms of the size of the imaging sensor used. 😉 This one is a best seller, presumably, because it was just recently announced and it's still in preorder state (with a free PL adapter!). I'm tracking it, though, as it's in the "less squeeze, but with oval aperture" that I find somewhat interesting, as shooting true 2x anamorphic feels generally unwieldy. I'll point out that even in a distortion-free 28mm lens, shooting a close-up tends to be unflattering due to perspective. The reason longer focal lengths tend to be seen as more flattering is because the relative distance from the nearest part of the face (probably the nose) and the rest of the face (especially the eyes) is much larger. If I am standing 12" from a subject with a nose 1" long, the nose will seem much larger in comparison than if I am standing 48-72" from the same subject. This can be observed simply by holding the hand about 11" from the face and moving it back 1". The difference in size is noticeable - and it is for the nose in a portrait as well. There's an additional part of this which will get you chased out of a number of forums for heresy - if you are shooting at sufficiently high resolution, you can take a couple of steps back with your 28mm lens and then just digitally reframe/zoom in on the subject and get functionally the same result as putting on a slightly longer lens at the same aperture value (give or take variances in lens character, etc). If you're shooting at 8K to deliver in 4K, it can be a pretty big couple of steps. This is basically turning a prime lens into a zoom lens. This sort of thing is specifically why I love having a 180mm macro lens - it lets me do extrame c-u of an actor's eye or eyes without getting the entire camera package right up in their grill. No matte box, though. I ain't professional enough to use a matte box. Controlled sets can also be places where using a Zoom lens becomes more attractive, as swapping lenses can take 3-5 minutes. - Detach FF gears - Remove support - Unmount first lens - Mount second lens - Attach support - Attach FF gears - If using electronic FF, run calibration - Potentially, if on a fancier set than I'm usually on, inform whoever is doing script notes of the change If shooting under any sort of time constraints, everybody will start to hate you after a little while if doing this frequently. This sort of thing is why I've begun using a Canon C80 with autofocus stills lenses for timed film competitions. I did one with the RF 24-105/2.8 on loan from CPS (worked great, beautiful lens, maybe someday when the price is more reasonable, I'll buy one) and another with my own 24-70/2.8L II and 24-70/4L IS and swapped in the 85/1.4L IS for some close-ups and the 180/3.5L for some extreme close-ups. It's been working really, really well. On the last set, when someone got annoyed that I was swapping lenses again for some reason, they timed me - total time for a lens swap was about 1 minute 15 seconds (no lens supports, no FF gears).

Well one thing is for sure and that is the S5II absolutely annihilates the S1RII, even with the ‘heat management’ firmware update. Shooting a pair of S1RII’s and a single S5II, same or at least similar lenses, tripods, same settings (4k) at approx 40 degrees Celsius in the shade…and the S1RII’s within 20 minutes shut down each, 3x. Quick battery changes helped string out a couple more minutes before the next inevitable shutdown. Meanwhile, the S5II mumbled something about holding its beer. That’s it, one unit is being traded for an S1II, which was something I was considering anyway. S1RII principle photo and occasional video S1II principle all day video unit S5II workhorse tripod unit S9 backup and roaming ceremony unit L10 candid & details unit But otherwise zero criticisms of how this kit is performing. Ticks basically every box for my needs.

I'm once again reminded of Noam Kroll, who has gone a long way into this rabbit hole. My recollection of his method was a balanced approach, where you make a plan and then improvise and adapt within a limited range. My impression was that he would storyboard things as a way of mentally rehearsing the shoot, and would end up with a clear idea of the logistics of the shoot, the equipment required, etc. Location scouting and anticipating the light etc as you normally would. I believe he also gained a clear idea of which shots were required, and which had some flexibility. Then when he was shooting he could make sure that he got enough for a functional edit, but was also clear enough in his thinking that he could adapt the plan to compensate for any challenges that arose and also to take advantage of any serendipity or inspiration that occurred. I suspect that this is a very deep skill, to plan and then improvise a shoot with an understanding of how the choices being made will go together in the edit. I know enough about editing to know that it's a jigsaw puzzle where you can have two small sequences that work well but don't cut together directly, so unless you can find a way to get from one sequence to the other then you have to change one of them so they're compatible. To do this for a whole scene, or whole film, in your head while you're still shooting it is beyond what I could even imagine, but I'm sure that the talented cinematographers are easily up to the challenge. Noam actually went further, describing a process where he worked with two actors and where he 'designed' what would be shot ahead of time, with the major plot points and story beats, but didn't fully script it. On each day of shooting the three would have breakfast and discuss the motives of the characters and how the scenes should go. Then they'd shoot while improvise the scenes, filming as they went and exploring ideas. It was freedom within a planned structure. I believe he was shooting one or two days a week, and so after shooting he'd review the footage and do rough edits, seeing what worked and what didn't. Then he'd 'design' the next shoot day accordingly, sometimes keeping on with his overall plan for the story but other times seeing something in the footage that made him adapt the narrative. I suspect that the skill is in knowing how much you can stray from the plan and knowing in which ways to adapt to make the end result better than if you just shot it as planned without any adapting to the situation. Certainly if you make a plan and then prioritise which shots are the most to least important then you'll have a good chance of coming back with a functional edit. My impression of great travel content is that most shots are good-but-not-great, and the art is in the edit and how they're combined. EOS-M and primes and a Fujinon-TV 14-70 f/2 will do a lot of the heavy lifting in making it look like cinema instead of video. In my mind you'll need to pay attention to how to keep the camera stable and then look at your references and study their coverage so you can design yours. By shooting on less than pristine equipment, you'll have to get things right in-camera as you won't be able to mess with it in post as much. Specifically, being able to zoom in a little in post can be useful if a random passer-by is staring. If you were shooting this with a modern mirrorless and sharp/neutral lens then I'd suggest using the highest resolution possible just so you have that flexibility. Your concern for getting stared at is legitimate, but the focus is to not get people staring while they're in the frame. As such I'd suggest getting more coverage using tighter framing and shallower DOFs, and for shots that are wider, simply getting more footage so you can edit around people staring. AI can potentially help if there are random people staring in shots you really want to use, but if you can edit around these moments (or prevent them from being in shot in the first place) then all the better. It's also worth considering that there are a number of things you can do that will lessen the changes of people noticing you and the camera, or lessen the people who are currently in frame noticing it. Another strategy is to investigate how much b-roll can be used in the edit without it taking away from the story. You may be able to get away with putting b-roll on top of a good audio edit, essentially having an L-cut followed by a J-cut where the audio goes from one character to the another but the visuals go via a b-roll shot from the location. I'm sure there's a deep art to doing this, but it's worth grabbing as much b-roll as you can while on location (especially if shooting has to wait for any reason but you're able to shoot). You can even return at a later time to get more footage, or better yet, take your kit and go shoot the location ahead of time so you can do a dry-run with the actual rig and also get a sense of what the location is like to shoot by actually shooting in it.

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

Further to the above, and further to what Mercer wrote.. The smaller the camera package the more amateur and less pro you look, which impacts how the authorities treat you Often locations care if you have a tripod or not, especially in crowded situations where a tripod takes up a lot of space and is a tripping hazard. Alternatives to a tripod are obviously hand-held and also shoulder-rig, but the often overlooked options are a monopod, and Mercers trick of having a monopod where the foot is resting in a pocket of a belt, so the camera effectively gains the stability of the operators waist Depending on the focal length and type of shot (medium, close-up, etc) the primary consideration in crowded places is if people will walk in between the camera and subject. My travel shooting with my family was done mostly on a 35mm F1.9 equivalent and this enabled medium-close-ups and closer in very crowded places without anyone getting in-between and wider than that with people or obstacles in-between. If you want to get more distance than that and not get wider then you'd need to go to a 50 or tighter depending on the distances involved. I personally find this hugely situationally dependent as it depends on how crowded things are, how noticeable the operator is, how willing to walk in front of a camera people are (or how much/little they care about you) etc. Combined with the distance / density / shot-size / focal length interactions are the DOF considerations, specifically how much do you want to separate your subject and at what distances. Normally this also blends into low-light requirements but I think these days if you use a dual-ISO camera then that consideration drops away and you can get by with F2.8 or even F4 at night in well-lit areas. The main reason that aperture isn't an obvious choice (just go F1.4!) is that if you can choose a slower lens then you can consider a zoom, which changes the shooting equation drastically. Depending on how you're planning and scheduling the shoot, the ability to move fast without changing lenses might be considerable. The French New Wave approach of getting minimal coverage and preferring longer takes is something to consider. There's a huge difference in logistics between storyboarding the whole thing within an inch of its life (and having many setups and doing hair/makeup/wardrobe touchups between takes etc) and running the whole scene a couple of times with a wider master then going a bit tighter and grabbing the more interesting shots as colour for the edit. Noam Kroll has shot short films on film and only had ratios of 2:1 or similar, and for certain sections only shot one take because he wanted to spend more film on making the important parts more interesting. For aesthetics it's also worth considering what you'll do in prod vs post. The traditional prod approach is to use filtration and select a lens / aperture combination that gives the rendering you want, and then you'd shape the light and control your lighting amount and ratios etc to suit your ISO/aperture/filtration. This makes prod very cumbersome and if you don't control the location perhaps impossible. The alternative approach is that you choose much more neutral equipment and push a bit of a look in post. There are obviously limits to this, but for example by picking a lens that's sharper across its range you can vary the aperture to control DOF and exposure in prod and then degrade it in post (soften it globally and in the corners, add distortion, add diffusion, add vignetting, etc) and you'll have a consistent look despite using the lens at different apertures, etc. Think about DR. The more DR the camera has the less of the scene you will clip and the more flexibility you'll have to adjust exposure and ratios etc in post without making the clipped areas visible. The less DR you have the more carefully you'll have to expose, and the less flexibility you'll have with moving shots that go between dark/light areas. The more DR you have the less you need to vary the aperture on the lens to compensate, or the less you'll need any lighting etc to compensate. Think about the contrast of the final film. The more contrast you apply, the more leeway you will have with the cameras DR, so the previous point gets easier. Film was great in this sense as the negative was so wide and flexible and gave a lot of leeway in post. Monitor as well as you can. Use a large monitor and a viewing LUT. The more you can visualise the end result while shooting the better. I find that shooting in uncontrolled situations means there are always things in the frame that I'm reacting to. This is in alignment with the situation and performance too - shooting in crowded public places will have the cast reacting to their surroundings, so you should be reacting to their performance and to your surroundings too, so the more clearly you can see the shot the more coherently you can react to it. Embrace the chaos. Separate the ideas of controlled coverage and creative experimentation as much as you can. The idea of getting a master in the can and then experimenting is great because you can ensure you've got an edit that can work and then you can grab risky but potentially great shots after that. Much better to have the final edit cut between neutral shots and really great shots that embrace spontaneity and add to the film than struggling in the edit by having to cut between shots that are neither safe nor creative nor sensitive to the surroundings. Some example 35mm F1.9 shots I've taken (please ignore the grading - these were from a long time ago!!!): More recent shots with 68mm F1.5 equivalent: and more recent with 70mm F2.0 equivalent: If you really wanted a minimal set of focal lengths, I'd suggest a 28mm for wides and ultra-packed situations, a 'normal' lens in the 35-50mm range, and a longer one in the 70-100mm range for shots where you are at some distance and don't want a wide. Your aesthetic should really begin with the emotional arc of the characters in the film, filtered into scenes, then the equipment chosen to express the intended aesthetic while shooting in the specific circumstances of the location and logistical assets and challenges.

I'm thinking of selling mine. I have had mine for a couple years and understand the camera's ins and outs if you need any information. As far as your question, I'd be most worried about the usb-c port. Most of the available cages do not have cable clamps, so I'd imagine most FP users haven't used them with the camera. So I'd verify with the seller that the port functions and the connection is tight.

Well stated @eatstoomuchjam @kye :- )

Which apps can do the trick? Brian Williams wrote: Looking forward to this app! 🙂👍

I really wanted to like the PDMovie. I had the previous version (Air 3 Smart? Something like that) for a bit and ended up selling it after trying to use it just a few times. The weird batteries were a little annoying, but I could have lived with them if not for the complete lack of ability to choose what it focuses on. As far as I could tell, the focus would always be on "whatever is closest" With DJI focus, the hand grip has a little screen where you can at least tell it where you want the focus to be - and it'll successfully focus on that thing about... well, 85% of the time. For me, the systems that fake out PDAF are more exciting. I hope that someone comes out with one for RF mount sometime - or even better, for EF mount. Otherwise, the ones with a little motor are kind of neat - though moving the lens back and forth is not quite the same as adjusting the focus (though usually it's a relatively petty distinction).

I assume some of you have heard this story... when Stanley Kubrick got his first Hollywood job directing a movie, he asked the cinematographer to switch to a different lens for the next shot. Instead, he moved the camera to get the shot. Kubrick asked him to put the camera back and switch the lens like he asked. The cinematographer told him it was the same shot if you moved the camera or changed the lens. Being a photographer in his previous life, Kubrick disagreed and said the perspective changed. Unless I'm remembering this story incorrectly, the man vehemently disagreed and refused to do what Kubrick asked, so Kubrick was forced to fire him and throw him off his set. Of course there's a lot to lensing than just FOV, the question becomes how important does the perspective, in this case, matter? Kubrick was right, the shot changed and it mattered to him because it was his film. Would the audience have felt the difference in what he was trying to communicate with that specific lens, from that specific distance? Possibly. The question becomes how much does it affect yours. I remember when I first got my 5Diii and the 24-70mm f/4. I was checking the light on the talent and lining up my shot and the image looked a little flat, so I zoomed in and stepped back and the talent popped. In that instance, I used a little bit of 1,2 and 3 I suppose. I can't lie and say I did this to emphasize any theme or symbolism, I was merely looking for a shot with a bit more dimension so I zoomed with the zoom and zoomed with my feet... it was that moment I knew I was a pro in my own mind.

I think @kye’s point still stands, and maybe it becomes even clearer once you move away from the usual zooms vs primes argument. It always comes down to how much convenience a zoom actually buys you, especially when time becomes critical. On a controlled set, changing lenses can break rhythm, slow down the crew, cost minutes, and sometimes cost the shot. In uncontrolled environments, it can be even more decisive, because you may simply not have the time, the space, or the chance to change lenses before the moment is gone. So yes, a zoom can solve a very practical problem: time, reaction and continuity. That should not be underestimated. If the situation is changing in front of you, the practical convenience of a zoom can become creatively important too. But I don’t think this cancels the OP’s deeper point. There is also another kind of convenience in truly understanding a given focal length. It teaches you where to stand, how close to be, how to move, how much space to leave, and how the scene changes once your own position changes. A zoom may save the moment, but understanding focal lengths changes how you read the moment in the first place. And this is also why I have never had any patience for the 2x, 3x, 5x terminology. I always prefer the actual focal length value, because that tells me something real about the relationship between camera, subject and space. “2x” may be convenient marketing language, but “35mm”, “50mm” or “85mm” immediately tells you much more about how the image is likely to feel and how you may need to position yourself. Leonel Vieira is a good recent example of this. This June, while shooting the making-of on A NOITE, I was able to observe that very particular relationship he has with focal lengths, especially his liking for 75mm and 100mm lenses, focal lengths he has often favoured and used there. That is not just a technical preference. It affects distance, performance, compression, the way actors are observed, and the emotional space between camera and subject. With those lenses, the focal length becomes part of the staging itself, not just a number attached to the lens.

Can you think of any narrative films that were shot with natural lighting minimal crews in busy areas/cities? I’m doing some research for an upcoming zero-budget project, trying to figure out a solid approach to the aesthetics. I really want to get out of a locked set for this one.

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

Zoom Vs Primes! Horses for courses isn't it, but more and more i will go out with my Tokina 28-70mm f2.6-2.8 - 3 focal lengths in one, no brainer! This is not to say that I don't like primes, well not entirely - I'm not too keen on wide angle lenses as they produce distortion the wider you go. And then this can be a bonus, try doing a close-up with a wide angle lens - the wider the better. So, the whole thing about you have to use a wide lens for landscapes or an 80mm for portraits is just nonsense. You use what you want to achieve the result that you want - there are no rules or if you are more traditional, rules are meant to be broken! If you follow the herd, you'll just produce pictures/films that look like everyone else's - how are you going to stand out if you aren't being creative in your lens choices?

Voigtländer made a 90 mm f/3.5 Apo Lanthar for DSLRs. Nikon made a series E 100 mm f/2.8 that is very compact. I think most people today prefer to use zooms for landscape photography. Short tele lenses of smaller maximum apertures typically have some close-up capability or even may be optimized primarily for close-ups. I believe for the most part, manufacturers follow sales and make their product lineups based on sales data combined with estimated future demand. Often users just have to adapt to what is available if they want to use new lenses. Even popular lenses can be neglected or discontinued if the manufacturer wants to promote something new. One issue with non-macro primes of smaller apertures is that manufacturers find it easier to market product lineups where there is a clear line of progression from one level of product upwards to the mid-level and top-of-the-line, and every parameter of performance should improve along the way. This means that although it would be easier to make smaller-aperture lenses better optically than large-aperture lenses of corresponding focal lengths, the manufacturers will make every effort to make the reverse true and the larger-aperture lenses better in image quality, focus speed, etc. and sometimes this means the smaller aperture lenses don't get all the quality they could have. This is unfortunate as I believe there is significant demand for compact, very high quality lenses.

Exactly, that is the interesting part for me too. I don’t think the best use of this will necessarily be obvious “POV footage” in the usual action-camera sense. The more interesting uses may be the almost invisible ones: situations where the camera is there, alive, following attention, but not constantly being operated in a way that announces itself to everyone in the room. Your point about parallax and offset is completely fair. If the camera is too far from the head, then the head direction and the actual camera perspective will never match perfectly. But I am not sure that perfect matching is always the goal. In many documentary or making-of situations, what matters is not to reproduce the exact optical perspective of the eye, but to reduce the burden of manual operation and preserve a more natural relation with the subject. That is why I find it interesting for BTS, documentary and observational work. Not as a perfect substitute for a shoulder camera, not as a Steadicam either, even though, as a gimbal camera, it belongs to a lineage that goes much further back, including the invention that so impressed Kubrick that Garrett Brown ended up operating his own system on THE SHINING. I see it more as a small autonomous B-camera, or a reactive camera system, able to follow intention without forcing the operator to constantly lift, aim, correct and therefore disturb the situation. In a film set, for instance, the value may be precisely in allowing the device to become boring after a while. If people stop reacting to it, or react to it less than to a conventional camera operator moving around with a visible setup, then it starts doing something useful. So yes, I think the strongest uses for it may be almost invisible. Not spectacular POV shots, but the kind of footage that exists because the tool reduced the amount of intervention needed to capture it.

Interesting points and I definitely see the challenge and how this potentially provides new potential solutions to some aspects. @eatstoomuchjam mentions having something mounted on the brim of a hat, and this does in some way create an alternative option. Perhaps the added feature of the head tracker is that you can track the direction of the head without having the camera on the head, which makes me question where would you have it? The further from the head you put it the more parallax error, and unless it could have some sort of offset (which is probably possible) then the framing might be off. Maybe it's better as a more walk-around camera rather than if you're stationary and what you're filming is mostly stationary. I do see "those shots" in docos from time to time where the footage you're seeing wasn't shot well but is pivotal to the story and therefore included in the edit. For example when crossing a border into a war zone the audio is of the border guards talking with the producer and the visual is the camera seeing the back of a car seat, or everyone is running while chaos ensues, etc. I can definitely see that it's an alternative to a chest-mounted action camera where the ultra-wide is capturing far too wide a FOV, and where the head-mount would capture the action with a much tighter FOV. I can also see someone doing BTS rigging one up with an NPF battery and mini desktop tripod and body clamp and just wandering around with it constantly turned on but not always recording, and the fact that it's always on and always moving would mean it would become invisible after a while, making the footage it captures much less influenced by its presence. Interesting stuff. I guess it's probably a thing where the right uses for it are almost invisible. Like how shoulder-mounted ENG / doco cameras can be used to create footage that doesn't call attention to itself, but in certain drastic situations such cameras do really call attention to themselves, this would be able to capture footage that doesn't call attention to itself in situations where no other camera setup could. Great discussion!

I think the POV Head Tracker should not be seen merely as a vlogging gimmick or as another accessory for people who want to film themselves walking down the street. There are many different ways of filming, framing and capturing reality. The most “professional” approach is often understood as the most controlled one: you plan the shoot, you discuss the framing, you block the scene, you decide where the camera goes, you decide what the subject is supposed to give you, and then you execute. That is obviously valid, and it is the basis of a lot of good cinema. But it is not the only way to make images. There is also another tradition: a more intuitive, observational, physical and spontaneous way of filming, where the camera is less a machine imposing a pre-decided frame on the world and more an extension of the filmmaker’s presence inside that world. That is where I think something like the Insta360 POV Head Tracker becomes interesting. The question is not only “what can it do technically?” The question is: what kind of relationship with reality does it allow? When you are operating a camera in the conventional way, you are always doing several things at once. You are looking, framing, correcting, adjusting, deciding, reacting, and at the same time you are also visibly present as “the person filming”. That presence changes the situation. It changes the people in front of you. It changes the rhythm of what happens. It can intimidate, formalise, freeze or theatricalise reality. In documentary, this is especially important. The more you plan, the more you risk fixing the subject before you have really encountered it. You may think you are observing reality, but you are already working on a construction of reality. You are no longer only receiving what is in front of you. You are fabricating a gaze, and the subject starts to exist inside that fabrication. Of course, complete objectivity does not exist. Every image is already a point of view. But there is still a big difference between a camera that constantly announces itself as an intervention and a camera system that allows the filmmaker to remain more physically and psychologically inside the situation. This is why the POV Head Tracker interests me. It may allow the filmmaker to film without constantly “operating” in the traditional sense. The camera can follow the natural direction of the filmmaker’s attention. The image can become closer to a lived point of view rather than a pre-composed shot. Not perfect objectivity, obviously, but perhaps a more immediate form of subjectivity. That distinction matters. A head-tracked gimbal camera could be useful not because it replaces deliberate cinematography, but because it opens another mode of acquisition: a more instinctive, embodied, less intimidating mode. It lets you be present with the subject while still filming. It can reduce the gap between seeing and recording. In that sense, I see a possible historical parallel with what happened when smaller 16mm cameras became available. Those cameras did not simply make cinema smaller. They changed the grammar of cinema. They allowed filmmakers to move differently, to follow people differently, to enter rooms differently, to film streets, faces, accidents, gestures, private moments and unstable situations in ways that would have been much harder with heavier, more industrial tools. You can connect that to cinéma vérité, direct cinema, the Nouvelle Vague, the New American Cinema, Jonas Mekas in New York, underground and independent filmmaking, and later the influence of that freer, more mobile language on figures like Cassavetes, Scorsese, and the whole post-studio generation. Even mainstream cinema eventually absorbed some of that looseness, that handheld energy, that search for immediacy. Jonas Mekas is not just an abstract reference for me. I had the privilege of knowing him personally in the mid-1990s, at the Figueira da Foz International Film Festival, which he used to attend. In that same context, I was also fortunate enough to receive an award as best daily press film critic. More importantly, a project I am still developing today was born precisely from that contact with Mekas. So when I refer to him here, I am not only invoking a name from film history. I am also referring to a very concrete personal encounter with a way of understanding cinema as diary, presence, immediacy, memory and life. The technology did not create those artistic revolutions by itself. But it made certain gestures possible. And when a tool makes a new gesture possible, it can also make a new kind of cinema possible. That is how I would look at the POV Head Tracker. Not as “AI tracking for creators”, but as a small step toward a different relation between body, gaze and camera. From the end of last month and carrying into this June, I worked on the making-of for A NOITE, Leonel Vieira’s film adaptation of José Saramago’s homonymous play. During the shoot, we used the Osmo Pocket 3 alongside other cameras, including a Sony A7S III, an FX30, a Panasonic GX80/GX85 and other small-format tools, Insta360 included. The film itself was being shot on two ARRI cameras, so this kind of low-profile equipment was obviously not what people on a cinema set are most used to seeing. Even Leonel Vieira, the director, looked at the Osmo Pocket 3 and jokingly said it looked like a toy camera. But that was precisely part of the point. I took the initiative to use it without hesitation, accepting the risks of bringing that kind of device into a professional film set, and combining it with different optical tools, including black mist filters to create atmosphere, Sirui anamorphic lenses and other accessories. In that context, I became very aware of how valuable it would be to have a device that lets me film without constantly managing the camera as an object. Not to mention that 10-bit Log recording is now available on the Luna Ultra as well. In a making-of situation, the best moments often happen before people know they are “performing” for the camera. They happen between takes, in hesitations, glances, silences, rehearsals, small gestures, private exchanges, and moments when the machinery of cinema briefly becomes human again. But the moment you raise the camera, adjust the frame, move closer, correct the angle, ask for space or visibly operate, you can lose the very thing you were trying to capture. The reality in front of the lens changes because of you. And that is fundamental in a making-of context: to be as minimally intrusive as possible, so as not to disturb the set of the main film being shot. The reactions of the professionals involved are, in many ways, the real subject of a making-of, and those reactions should not be manipulated by the visible presence of the image-capturing device itself. In our case, we were working with a very small crew: two to three people at most. In fact, it was necessary to convince Leonel Vieira to accept a maximum of three people, because ideally he preferred two, and sometimes only one person could be present. In those situations, when only one person was shooting and I still needed two possible angles, a camera A and a camera B, the only viable option was to have a B camera as autonomous and unobtrusive as possible, which is exactly how the Osmo Pocket 3 was used. With a device such as the Luna Ultra and its POV Head Tracker, that kind of work would become much easier, not only during the shoot itself but also later, when reaching the post-production suite and needing more options in the edit. So a device that lets the camera follow your attention, while your hands and your body remain less occupied by the act of filming, could be extremely useful. It could allow the operator to be less intrusive, less theatrical, less visibly extractive. It could make the camera feel less like a weapon pointed at reality and more like a witness moving through it. That does not mean this is for every situation. It is not a substitute for composed cinematography, lighting, blocking, lenses, or intentional mise-en-scène. But it could be very valuable for documentary, making-of work, rehearsal footage, street filming, travel, observational cinema, and any situation where spontaneity matters more than perfect formal control. The professional instinct is often to control everything. But sometimes cinema gains power when we control less. Sometimes the most authentic image is not the one we planned best, but the one we were able to receive before reality became aware of our plan. That, to me, is where the POV Head Tracker could become genuinely interesting.

@mercerI started my cam journey in earnest on the 5D MKII/IIII with the ML hack - so I have a soft spot for that RAW workflow! And I still have two 5D MKIII that I will prob never sell. I currently have a R5OV as travel/casual/C cam but I am not feeling the APSC look. So when I recently rediscovered the FP I became a bit obsessed with the idea of having something that small and powerful become my casual/travel cam. Meanwhile I'd just keep the R50V as a C-cam to my R5Cs. But as you say, the FP seems so finnicky that it has required an unprecedented level of research/due diligence on my end. So I've been wavering back and forth for about a month now. As it stands, if I can get a used FP in good condition for $600 USD (just missed one with the modded back dial for that price!) then I'll go for it (knowing I'd still be buying the DPL screen mod, the DPL base cage+SSD holder+SSD bottom mount and side accessory, a Meike or Vizelex Smart adapter/VND, and the pdmovie 3). If not, there's the Lumix S9 and maaaaybe the Nikon ZR but that then I'm getting to R6V territory as far as size and price.

You may have read me post before that I came to the FP, due to my love of 1080p (actually 1920x818) ML Raw on the 5D Mark iii. I seriously love the image and it still reigns as the best image and favorite camera I have ever owned, but being 1080p and an EF mount camera, it could be "soft" with certain lenses and I couldn't use some lenses I have collected over the years. That said, in some ways, the FP is the spiritual successor to the 5Diii ML Raw because both are "uncompressed" raw and both have, or lack, a manufacturer designed post production workflow. Coming from ML Raw, this never bothered me. With the FP, I set the picture profile to OFF and used the camera meter to judge exposure... as long as you hover +/- 0, you will be able to finesse the image in post however you want to. So I never worried about seeing an accurate representation of anything with it. I made sure I didn't clip the highlights, used False Color to check skin and hit record. As far as EF mount lenses go, I have 4... the Canon 28mm 1.8, Samyang 50mm 1.4, and two modified lenses... a Minolta 58mm 1.4 and the Canon FD 50mm 1.2 L. I have so many other vintage lenses that I didn't even get an EF adapter. However I was planning to bring out my 5Diii more often, so I looked at purchasing (repurchasing) a couple lenses... the 24-70mm f/4 and 35mm f/2 IS, so I did glance at a few of the electronic adapters for L Mount thinking they could pull double duty. At the time I was more worried about IS translating over to the FP than I was ND, so the Sigma adapter seemed like the safest bet. The FP was intended to be an inexpensive and tiny raw camera that I could walk around with and grab shots for short films, so I wanted the footprint to be as minimal as possible, which unfortunately is near impossible with the FP and eventually frustrated me. I later bought an inexpensive GH6 and the Arri LogC3 upgrade key, with similar intentions but the crop annoys me. Now I think I'm going to sell both and get a Nikon ZR, and be done with it. I have my 5D3 and a Canon V1 for one film I started working on and the Nikon will be for the other film. All that said, the FP is a fine camera and the image is pretty damn good, it's just too quirky for my run and gun incognito sensibilities, but if you don't mind rigging it up a little, I can't imagine the S9 could come close to the FP in pure image quality. In fact, I was thinking of waiting to do a major camera upgrade and getting the original S5 as a stop gap for my second film and then reevaluating my cameras this time next year, and I may still do that for the IBIS, but in reality, the image is more important to me, and the flexibility of a raw workflow, so I'd probably just keep the FP for that scenario... even though the GH6's IBIS may have spoiled me a little.

Got it! I think for me, the biggest things I've been trying to wrap my head around (because I've only been able to learn about this cam via bits and pieces of anecdotal info from Youtubers and owners posting in FB/Reddit groups) are: (i) The monitoring situation: So as I currently understand it - the Ninja V is the only monitor that - when used with the Ole Berek LUT - shows you a fairly close representation of what the RAW image actually looks like in the field compared to what you get on the FP's own screen (as far as exposure, etc) (ii) What is the best EF-L mount adapter with VND? I'm seeing that the issues with the Meike version might have been addressed and I'm unsure whether the Meike and Fotodiox/Vizelex Smart adapter/VNF versions will fit when using the Dark Power Laboratory Base cage and.or Ultimate cage. Any help/thoughts on this would be appreciated. All that said, I'm still interested in it but if I can't get a good deal on one here in Toronto, I will prob just end up getting an S9!

What will you use this kind of thing for? You seem very excited, but I don't really know what I'd use this for.

Lost in Translation was famously shot in Tokyo without official permission. They shot in public with a very minimal crew and moved fast to try and keep ahead of the authorities. They chose this approach primarily because it was almost impossible to get permission to film there at the time. I saw a great doco about the making of it but it's been removed from YT now so can't share it. I don't know what sort of info you want to know to prep for your film, but there are snippets of BTS online if you dig. This video shows a bit of BTS from on location (linked to timestamp): From what I can remember / piece together: shotonwhat says it was shot on Kodak 320T and 500T using Aaton 35-III Camera and a Moviecam Compact Camera with Angenieux and Zeiss Super Speed Lenses they moved fast to stay ahead of the authorities the cast and crew when out shooting in public was only a few people (camera, sound, director, and talent and I think that's it?) and were all non-Japanese people, and if anyone official came to tell them off the they would just be apologetic but use the language gap to effectively prevent any communication. They had a Japanese fixer who stayed a distance apart from the group (so they wouldn't be noticed by the authorities) but that was helping with logistics etc and could step in if the situation required it they had challenges with locations (link to timestamp) another snippet of them on location - tripod but not clear if they're using any lights What information are you looking for specifically?

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

The Guerilla Film Makers series of guides is getting on a bit but offers some solid insights into zero budget that are still very relevant. https://guerillafilm.com/books/

https://www.cined.com/lidarac-app-for-tilta-nucleus-m-ii-and-nano-ii-introduced-turn-your-iphone-into-a-lidar-rangefinder/

I have finished modifying the painters pole i bought. Comparing the cheapness of selfie sticks verses the price of branded monopods, the painters pole does comes in dearer than a selfie stick and a fair bit cheaper than any monopod. It did need some modifications with a drill and a hacksaw it also required 2 x 1/4 bolts which have now been replaced with 2 black knurled 1/4 inch large diameter "bolts" which makes disassembly or assembly a breeze. The mission 1 fits on the crane m2 gimbal without issue even though it is a little bigger and heavier. i did remove some mass off the base plate, that allowed me to move the camera sideways just enough that i can fold all the axis's flat and stow it away in a plastic protective case in one piece. Remove the two black bolts stow in case and go. A great time saver i think. The first feature i like about it, is its robustness. Painters poles are sturdy pieces of equipment by design. The 2nd feature important to me at least was it has a hexagon shaft extension. which mean i dont have to worry about cams or twist locks, like you find on tripod legs coming adrift or wearing out, they always seem to frustrate me. The minimum height is about 5 feet and i think i can extend it to about 9 feet. I'll have to find a tape measure tomorrow... With gimbal attached the camera is a little lower than my eyes and im nearly 6 feet tall. So i kinda feel like it should be a nice height if i am just holding it upright, time will tell. I have been out today scouting, My town has a bunch of murals painted on various walls all over town, probably most towns have similar. There's actually a path to follow on google if one wanted to search it out. I had the mission 1 in a pocket and the first thing i noticed is that the rubber sun shade can get dislodged pretty easy and intrude into the photo. This is from a burst mode, you know the 960 fps. Interestingly burst mode files sizes seem to come in at about 134 - 144 MB per batch. if you have a look at the two pics you can see the difference in light levels. Straight out of camera we have a jpg ( yes i know i should have shot raw ) i figured i would start with the defaults and see how that goes... These are like only a minute apart and there's not a cloud in the sky. Not that i find the look unpleasant, it is what it is. The mission1 also does a ton of processing after you stop recording, it continues processing for a few seconds. Again not an issue just things i have noticed. If i use the phrase gopro take a picture it will do whatever the mode is set to, however it seems a little finicky in its execution the timing doesn't always seem the same. Theres also a very good chance the error is operator induced, but i think it may be more consistent for me, if i buy a bluetooth remote to trigger it, specifically if your trying to do one man band 960 fps sequences. I have tried half a dozen slow motion things at home with out alot of success.

Further lens contemplation reminded me of my Tokina RMC 28-70mm F3.5-4.5 for m42 mount, which is deliciously imperfect, and when combined with an ultra-cheap wide-angle adapter gets even tastier.. I've struggled with this lens because the main issue with it is that it's a dumb lens and so there's no way for the cameras IBIS to know what focal length it's at. This is fine for tripod work, but that's not really how I shoot, and if it was tripod work is slow enough that I could just use primes. Then I realised that as I now own an EF speed booster I can get an EF zoom lens and it should report the current focal length to the camera and the IBIS challenge goes away. As such, I started looking for the absolute worst, most imperfect, least sharp, EF zoom lens I could find. Luckily, if you search ebay in ascending price it makes these gems obvious and you can peruse at your leisure. So I have now snapped up a lovely Tokina zoom that according to the Pentax forums has decidedly poor optical performance. Hooray!! Pics when it arrives, but I'm excited. I was also made aware of the existence of the Tokina AT-X PRO F2.8 zooms, which are interesting, but a long way from the top of the (price ascending) ebay search results. I also found a couple of the F2.6 Angie designs too, those were $3-4K.. wow!! Being famous on the internet sure makes things more expensive!

What impressed me most is how much of the effect comes from the camera work and lighting rather than expensive VFX. A lot of the unease is created by subtle motion, lens choices, and the way the footage is treated in post. When I'm trying to analyze that kind of look, I sometimes run clips through https://zimblu.co/blur-video/ just to get a better sense of the motion blur and movement they're using. Small details like that can make a scene feel surprisingly real.

🫢 But yes, even with streamlining year on year, the volume seems to keep going up and up despite (deliberately) less jobs. I’m looking at outsourcing, but I’d be looking at a 20% drop in take home income with any existing booked jobs…which would not be a good thing. There’s only really one thing to do and that is the missus will need to spend less time baking in the kitchen and start baking in LUTS and earn her keep that way…

The LiDAR stuff is actually pretty interesting for manual focus setups. Even if it’s not perfect AF, having distance data as a focus aid could still be super useful for run-and-gun shooting or low light situations. Curious to see how reliable it gets in real-world use.

https://www.newsshooter.com/2026/04/12/lidarac-app-for-the-tilta-nucleus-nano-ii/