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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 :- )

It allows you to operate the camera fully remotely so it is fundamentally the same thing. To be honest, if I was going to use such a thing then having a compact palmable remote is more appealing than walking around looking like I’m holding a crucifix like the Luna option. But it’s one more thing to carry so there is that. The head tracker is very smart and for people doing instructional videos it is excellent - even if it does look like you are carrying ET in a papoose when you are out and about. I guess the drawback is that it is excellent for seeing what you are seeing but falls down as a concept when doing the other 50-75% of what vloggers do which is getting their own face in reacting to what they are seeing. One issue might be trying to be discreet as you have to look at someone and ET sat there swivelling to do the same does draw more attention and gives off a mobile surveillance unit vibe. It such an eye catching feature though that I would expect DJI to be emulating it soon.

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.

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 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…

I should have some soon @kye @PannySVHS I say ‘soon’ as in shooting, but as to getting around to being able to even look at it… Currently already in a 6 week log jam (see what I did there?) which gets longer week by week 🤪

My archive on gh2 patches 1 GOP Intra 'moon' T7 - Top Grading - Best Motion - Best Setting Ever 1-SpanMyBitchUp patch is good quality for spanning with long record times 2-AQuamotion v2 is medium-high quality with decent spanning recording times + 80% slowdown / EX TELE 3 GOP 'Spizz' - Hi-Quality - Pro Motion 3-TerrAQuake is seAQuake but less quality frame sizes for poorer type 10 cards 4-SeAQuake is Very High Quality for hi-end SD cards 6 GOP - Middle Earth 'Nebula' 7 GH2 Flow Motion v2 - 100Mbps Fast Action Performance & Reliability 8 T9-gh4 like 9 12/15 GOP 'DREWnet' T9 - Traditional Long GOP 12 https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/blop84zqvmgob2qiab07v/ACl0mBKWCsMcidxL5qUcqgA?rlkey=3gb5igu910uyw5sipalzlovp2&st=1vsslgjs&dl=0