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There is a time for a clean aesthetic. There is a time for a more timeless more filmic aesthetic. There are times for a far grittier aesthetic too. Those who have been following my other thread will know I've mostly got my travel / walk-around AF setup nailed. (GH7 and GX85 bodies combined with the 14-140mm zoom, 12-35mm F2.8 zoom, 9mm F1.7, and 14mm F2.5 pancake lens) This setup will give a relatively clean starting point which can be graded to create a pretty wide range of looks. However, not everything can be achieved in post. I have also collected a bunch of modern MF lenses and vintage lenses over the years and these might be useful in creating other looks that I can't do in post with the above kit. So I'm trying to work out if I should just archive them or if they're still good for anything I want to do, and if so, what might that be? I've looked through my continually growing collection of lens comparisons, but found nothing conclusive. Thus begins a moderately sized lens / camera test... The setups included in the test are below. The details in brackets are the FF equivalents. OG BMPCC + 12-35mm F2.8 (35-100mm F8.0) This setup is included as I think it will be a reference for the rest of the setups (at worst) and might end up becoming part of my standard kit (at best). GF3 + 15mm F8 (30mm F16) This setup is included as it's essentially a modern Super-8mm camera, and considering it is absolutely tiny and takes the same batteries as the GX85 it's almost inconsequential to bring on a trip. GX85 with: Modern: Panasonic 12-35mm F2.8 (24-70mm F5.6) Modern: Panasonic 14mm F2.5 (28mm F5) Modern: Panasonic 14-42mm f3.5-5.6 (28-84mm F7.0-11.2) Modern MF: TTartisans 17mm F1.4 (34mm F2.8) Vintage: Cosmicar 12.5mm F1.9 SB (36mm F5.5) Modern MF: Voigtlander 17.5mm F0.95 (35mm F1.9) Vintage: SB + Yashica 28mm F2.8 (40mm F4.0) Vintage: SB + Tokina 28-70mm F3.5-4.5 (40-100mm F5.0-6.4) Vintage: SB + Takumar 35mm F3.5 (50mm F5) Vintage: SB + Mir-1B 37mm F2.8 (53mm F4) Vintage: SB + Takumar 55mm F1.8 (78mm F2.6) Vintage: SB + Helios 44M 58mm F2.0 (82mm F2.8) Modern MF: Voigtländer 42.5mm f0.95 (85mm F1.9) Modern MF: TTartisans 50mm f1.2 (100mm F2.4) I haven't included all my lenses, but the ones I have omitted have been included in other tests previously and are broadly similar to ones I have included, so if they become interesting as a result of this test I have some more reference materials. I watched a doco on Netflix the other day called Attack on London, and was really inspired by the look of the 'recreation' images they have obviously filmed for the doc, and seem to have used one of the filthiest anamorphic lenses around (and potentially added more dirt in post as well). Here are some screenshots.. These might not have been streamed at the highest bitrate available, but I don't care - they look great and have so much texture and feel. This isn't the exact aesthetic I'm going for, but it's one that I saw recently that has a lot of texture and FEEL. My hope is to work out what the ingredients are to getting this kind of feel and then work out when I would want it and then work backwards to what equipment and processes I'd use to get it. My initial impressions (guesses) are that the ingredients are: shallower DoF lower levels of sharpness decent amounts of grain film colours (especially having a tint and having subtractive sat) The above images have more elements to them than this, but I don't care much for things like CA etc, so I don't think they're part of the minimum required elements. I plan to shoot comparisons with the setups above in a range of different scenarios and then see what I can see, before moving onto the post workflows and what role those play.

It's arrived. First impressions = impressed. Feels like a very slightly chunkier S5ii and as it is taking over from a Sony A7RV (and a Nikon Zf), that is no bad thing. When it was first announced, I was disappointed on two counts... Count 01 = the body, - it was and is not a mini S1H. No top dial for one thing. Boo! Count 02 = it didn't have and still doesn't have the 61mp sensor from the A7RV/Leica SL3. Boo. Initially boo anyway. Count 03 = I am The Count and I like to count ha ha ha. (Bonus Count) But over time, these two 'issues' have become non-issues for me. The body first. Yes, I would rather it had the top LCD and was it's own design, but they have addressed my criticisms of the OG S5 and S5ii which were less than great rear LCD and horrible clacky shutter. It does have a sort of mini S1H feel, despite the lack of a top LCD. Summary, in reality, in the hand, I genuinely like it and everything works exactly or at least very similar to, how I am used to with the S5ii's, but just better. And the 44mp sensor over the 61mp? Came to the conclusion that 61mp was overkill anyway and was always shooting in 26mp mode so with the new Panny, I will actually be shooting in a higher resolution. Most importantly of all though, this has been an exercise in both downsizing my overall kit; this year from 5 bodies and 9 lenses to 4 bodies and 7 lenses, and then in 2026 (or poss later this Summer) from 7 down to 6 lenses. And all 4 cameras with the same batteries, menus and very close manual controls. Setting it up now for stills duty across 5 days from the end of this week and then it will also be on hybrid duty from mid Aug. Looking forward to pulling some 7.2...1k frame grabs.

99% of the people on YouTube cannot be called 'creators' unless the word is applied after the word 'content' and that followed with, 'for the sake of' and more often than not, proceeded by the word 'banal'. An endless stream of copycats with very little originality. It does exist (originality) but there isn't very much.

Do you have those clips that I did with it? Because I’m fucked if I can find them anywhere ! I’ve got some frame grabs from them (with the base then the different ARRI LUTs applied) when I was moaning on here about the warpy IBIS on the S5ii but not the actual clips. Not that they are a great loss to the world !

It's been a while since I've been able to work on any kind of movie, but here are some recent landscapes photos. I'm not doing anything artistic, just trying to capture some of my favorite places the way they felt at the time. The only edits are very slight changes to saturation and exposure. 90% of my photos are from 10+ mile hikes so I only bring my lightweight 28mm and a CPL, but in this group is a rare photo taken from the roadside using a 24-105.

It is a very nice camera from my experiences with it, though I've only used it a half dozen times. I actually just texted my buddy who owns it and asked if it had overheated yet, since it's now the hottest time of year here in Vermont, and he said it hasn't and he has had it out in the sun on 90 degree days. He doesn't do super long takes though like I would as an event shooter.

A 2.36mp EVF and a fixed LCD in a $5100 camera. Oh boy.

I'd say that if I had $5,100 burning a hole in my pocket for a compact camera (and I don't), I'd be a lot more likely to buy a GFX 100 RF for $300 less than that and then take myself and a friend to a nice restaurant and share a meal and some wine with the rest. (The 100RF really needs to start aging and showing up in big numbers on the used market already, would love to buy one at a big discount from one of the buttholes who bought one for retail and is now trying to sell for $7k)

!

I was on a very, very slow internet connection this morning so YouTube was loading in instalments. It loaded the titles but the thumbnails were a long time coming and it’s interesting how much more appealing a lot of the videos were to me when just looking at the title but how much less so they were when the thumbnails eventually loaded. I’m probably missing out on a great deal of good content by my inner “oh fuck off you absolute tit” dialogue when I see the content creators stupid gurning shock faced bullshit. Whether the narcissism that infects so many of them would allow them to just do a content relevant thumbnail is the big question. I can hear the ”But the algorithm makes us do it” whining from here.

Right, is it the hood or the bag that is made in Japan, because if it’s not both, I’m not interested as I prefer cloth and plastic from Japan and find similar items from countries such as China, Vietnam, Thailand etc, to be far inferior with their shitty cloth and plastics. I’d pay no more than $195-197.

I was going to say that's a crazy markup for about $0.10 in plastic, but then I saw that beautiful cloth bag that is included and it all made sense. 🤣

Far right cameras 😂

Define ‘bad’? -5 magenta and boom. One camera is a Golf GTi and the other is a Porsche Boxster. One is a better all-rounder and the other is better at one specific thing. Mid-range mirrorless vs low end cinema camera 🤷‍♂️

So this has changed from you comparing S1Rii colour compared with S5ii compared with OG S5 to S1ii vs Black Magic, I can't keep up 😜 I could change the topic now to your Black Magic colour science vs my Lumix IBIS. But in all seriousness, there is no one single one stop solution to anything but rather a case of whatever suits your needs best!

Well that is interesting… My ‘new’ S1Rii came with firmware v1.2 and Arri log C3 installed so some mug just bought and sold this camera pronto to MPB and I snaffled it for £2700. Unless I am the mug and they sold it to MPB because of some fault…but then surely they would have sent it back for a full refund to wherever they bought it on the first place? Someone probably lost over £750 in depreciation + Arri license… Not that I can use it because my other 3 Lumix cameras will never get option. Instead, looking forward to giving @Andrew Reid option a whirl, but it’s finding the time, - heavily bogged down with work at the moment…

Has anyone noticed with some of the biggest tech reviewers on youtube like Hardware Unboxed or MKHB, there's a trend at the moment for deadpan anti-hype style reviews. Be careful with that as well, it's a style-change to counteract the falling viewing figures caused by them overhyping everything every day for the past god-knows how many years, as people catch onto it and get bored of it.

And most importantly it has a "MADE IN JAPAN" marking on its side 😉 An artisan next to Hattori Hanzo's shop makes it by hand.

Its lens hood is just 198 USD https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/907015-REG/Sony_LHP_1_Lens_Hood.html

There are an almost infinite number of combos affecting these things but yes, 'white' caucasian skin for sure shows up the most magenta and more so in men and more so in men over a certain age and if they are drinkers, well... And then the DJ has his pink light on everything and we're all magenta! I'm about to do my next phase/gen of colour, or at least within the next couple of weeks after the next few jobs now I am 100% L Mount. I wasn't too bothered previously about having my stills match my video though you couldn't tell the difference between my Sony and Nikon files, but that is because they have been edited together. I've been very happy for the last 1.5 years with the SOOC look of my video files from my S5ii's and S9, but that is probably more because of the use of a 1/8th mist that reduces a bit of contrast and that 'digital' look, plus I am baking in an Arri inspired LUT. The combination of those 2 things gets me to about 80% of the finished image with another approx 10% being some very minor tweaks in post to some, but far from all bits of footage, mostly just some; cropping, straightening, exposure and minor WB and then another approx 10% with the creative LUT slapped on over the top. OK, it's not slapped, but gently laid over the entire timeline and the individual clips have a final tweak if needs be. It's not high end grading by any means, but I'm more than happy with the result. Could it be better? Sure and I've got a direction I'd like to take it and all be doing so over the coming weeks with the stills perfectly aligned with the video for future jobs.

Speaking of colour science when we shoot indian weddings the Lumix looks more pleasing than Sony straight up... the ugly yellow really ruined it without colour grading. When we do some livestream for Chinese (which is predominately Sony) they were shocked with the colour coming from Lumix cam, you know aisan really hate yellow on their already yellow skin. They really prefer pale and magenta more which Canon is really good at, which lumix is kinda similarish in that regard. This time last year I am all Sony.. FX3/FX30/E1.. sold them all and never regret. (well except the 4k60p crop but luckily my Canon can all do non crop 4K60p ha). I m still deciding between S1RII or S1II at end of the year when wedding season start to ramp up in southern hemisphere, 2 of my friend is gonna get S1II so I kinda want to be a bit different to them.

I got in touch with the person who's doing this project and we've been emailing back and forth about it. There's now a YouTube channel and a sample video (with more to come).

Could well be and no idea either. I wouldn't knowingly buy stolen good myself, but I guess we'd never know, especially if the legit company selling them to you is the source.

Or a new LX10, or bette lr a GM 1with rhe latest Lumix technology

Yeah - I was talking as an alternative tiny camera for the people who might be a target market for the rx1r iii. 515g (a7cr body only) is closer to 498g (body+lens of rx1r iii) than 723g (a7r v). Though they're all big enough that they won't fit in a pocket, unless you're wearing some Matty G cargo pants. (Maybe someday, some vendor will make a decent quality digital Olympus XA-1 - come on, OM System! Get with it) The ergonomics on the V look a LOT better, as you said. But sorry if I was unclear that I meant the specs on the sensor look similar between the two cameras. I'm willing to bet that I wouldn't be able to tell the difference in still photos or 4K video taken on the A7CR and A7R5. 😃

I don’t know but it came from MPB UK with their standard 6 month used warranty and I doubt they’d deal in stolen goods. Most likely someone’s favourite YouTuber said, “actually, I know I just hopped over from Sony to LUMIX, but I’ve decided to now go to Nikon”. One of those talkers/collectors who never actually shoots, just talks and collects and maybe one day, when they have finally assembled all the right kit, will actually use it 🤷‍♂️

2.36mp EVF, in 2025, OMFG...... what is Sony's obsession with using the worst quality screens/EVFs on their cameras. Also I'm not sure who mentioned it, but at that price honestly I would much rather grab the GFX100RF!!!!!

...and then mere nano-seconds later, thought, nah. I am in the process of trading my Sony A7RV and Nikon Zf for a Lumix S1Rii. Why? Brings it all in house as my 3 video units are Lumix so it makes sense to have my stills camera also Lumix for cross compatibility. I will miss both however... The A7RV has been my workhorse 'pro' camera for 1.5 years now and it just delivers and never disappoints, at least when it comes to build, handling and most importantly results. HOWEVER, it has only one 'fault' and that is as much as I like and respect it, there is something missing, - that 'if a camera had a soul' thing. The Nikon Zf on the other hand is hands down the best shooting experience stills camera I have ever owned...and I have had dozens. BUT, only with small AF primes. It is probably fantastic with MF primes, but I have never tried and I didn't care much for it with the 3 adapted Tamron E Mount primes I have tried with it. Nope, works best with the Smallrig grip and the plastic fantastic 40mm f2 SE lens. If it's so fantastic, why sell it? Well at one point, I was hoping that Sony would indeed pop out an RX1Riii, ie, my A7RV in a 'rangefinderesque' style body, but probably at a stupid price. And guess what, they have done exactly that! Would I trade my Zf for that? Not a chance. Would I trade the A7RV for one? Are you having a laugh? But trade both for an S1Rii that kind of straddles the gap between the two...if you squint a little. Yes.

Yes, I noticed it too, but as it was just a quick test I didn't bother. It's just from the jpg compression so I'm not having to upload 8.5MB per image (yes, really!). I'll watch for it on the next batch 🙂 I got an email from Sirui Australia that shipping on my anamorphic adapter is delayed due to the Amazon Prime Day sales, so I'm guessing that lots of Aussies must have sent some money their way.

I see lots of banding in your images kye, i hope its mot just me lol. i presume that's from the jpg setting. I used to get banding from jpegs when i used them in timelapses till i learned better. Can you maybe up the jpeg quality a notch ? I know their only test shots, however i kinda feel the banding is hindering the visual aspect abit.

And the industry is fairly confident it's the same sensor in the S1Rii, so I have exactly the same thing, albeit just like an octopus that has had 7 of its 8 limbs removed. Kind of...

this. maybe it's something everyone needs to experience firsthand. i thought that i would buy these vintage or modern cinema lenses with character and take these epic shots with them but just focusing on keeping the camera steady and trying to use focus wheel feels makes me switch to my first party AF lenses. i was recently going through some stuff that i shot and with a simple grade the footage was really filmic lol.

Only 7.1k? Better just stay home then. Everybody knows that it's a waste of time to shoot anything less than 7.2k. 😉

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Only Lexar cards, those approved by Panasonic.

Been on the look out for a yellow lens for awhile now. Some one said something down in the lens thread a while ago about a yellow lens , that got me thinking... Also i know there's two trains of thought with with photography / videography either do it in camera or do it in post. In most ways i like the in camera theory. Seems more authentic to me to do it in camera or more personal / intentional perhaps. In post seems more like an after thought to my way of thinking. Not wanting to rock any ones boat and if you like to do things in post that's great, please continue. Anyway finally decided on a lens, a super takumar 35mm f2. Should be a thorium lens from what i have read. So probably best, not to sleep with it under the pillow. I purchased this lens mostly with the intent of adding some warmness to an image / video. Not sure if the result will be a yellow or more sepia effect. There's a couple of images for your perusal. Should arrive before my birthday i hope.

I did some research some time ago from what i have read raynox are the wide angle adapter of choice. If you are keen to go further maybe do a little of your own research.

An update on my testing. I was thinking about what I wanted - something low quality in the optical path to dirty up the image a bit, and then it struck me - what I want is a cheap wide angle adapter! Then I remembered I had bought one years ago and went and found it and gave it a go. It's too small for most of my lenses (it's 52mm but most of my lenses are 58mm) but is a cheap 0.45x wide angle adapter so I shot some quick tests. Here are some direct with/without comparisons to give an idea of what does. These are all SOOC so ignore the incorrect WB settings and mismatched exposures etc. All lenses are wide open. GX85 + 14mm F2.5 without adapter: GX85 + 14mm F2.5 WITH adapter: Very interesting and definitely makes the image wider. If I use a zoom then I can match the framing and we can get a more direct comparison. GX85 + 12-35mm F2.8 at 12mm without adapter: GX85 + 12-35mm F2.8 at ~18mm WITH adapter: GX85 + 12-35mm F2.8 at ~25mm without adapter: GX85 + 12-35mm F2.8 at 35mm WITH adapter: Very interesting results and in the direction I'm going for. As a proof of concept it definitely has promise, but I'd need to buy one correctly sized of course. BUT, then I put it on the TTartisans 50mm F1.2 and fully wide open (of course!) basically all hell breaks loose! GX85 + TTartisans 50mm F1.2 without adapter: GX85 + TTartisans 50mm F1.2 WITH adapter: It's obviously not rated for F1.2 lenses!! The bokeh is also heavily modified too, which the above images hint at, but check this out.... GX85 + TTartisans 50mm F1.2 without adapter: GX85 + TTartisans 50mm F1.2 WITH adapter: These are the sorts of things you can't do with plugins, so this is what I'd be chasing real optics to do. However, the most interesting thing about a wide angle adapter is that it's basically a speed booster, so you get more light into the lenses and you also get a wider angle of view, which means that to get the same angle of view with the adapter you can use longer lenses, which can give shallower DOF for a given f-stop. Double bonus for MFT! So, I ordered the cheapest 58mm wide angle adapter I could find, and ordered the cheapest vND I could find to fit it (as the fronts are larger than the rear which makes it larger than my good vND. Oh yeah, and I also watched a bunch of reviews of anamorphic adapters and after seeing the prices (wow!) I just ordered a Sirui 1.25x anamorphic adapter, which is the cheapest of the bunch by a long shot. I'm not really that interested in the streaks but the softening and edge distortions should be great, and it's also like a horizontal-only speed booster so will let me use longer lenses for the same FOV.

It's exceedingly rare that a client will ask for an aesthetic that allows me to dust off my vintage lenses. And on the passion project side, I've shot four of five of my last narrative shorts with Canon zooms. The next one will be with a Canon zoom as well. That decision was based on speed, convenience, and the fact that I trust modern AF much more than a friend who has been given an hour of instruction on pulling focus, changing lenses, and calibrating motors. Of course, I'd rather have a professional 1st AC and some more interesting lenses. But there aren't that many of them around anymore (at least not in my market) and the pros that we do have usually don't want to cut their rates to work on a no-budget film. It's the same reason that I sold my RED cameras. They just weren't getting any use.

kye does your takumar 35mm f3.5 have any yellowing ? the reason i ask is I'm looking at 35mm takumars for that reason (thorium lenses i believe) rather than doing it in post. It will probably end up a one trick pony however i think i can live with that. Is that a client constraint ?

I always enjoy your posts, Kye. Threads like this are keeping this forum alive. This new Resolve plugin seems relevant to the discussion. I just downloaded a copy of this last night and had a play. It can't really affect bokeh much without a depth map (as shown, you can have AI generate one for you in Resolve), but even without it, the other characteristics can help create a unique aesthetic. It's a handy tool to have for those projects that won't allow for real vintage glass to be used -- which at least for me, seems to be most of them these days.

I suspect that's because the in-camera LUT is processing the video before it's compressed, but in post you are working video after compression (which is likely to have reduced or smoothed over some detail, depending on picture content and bitrates).

Nice is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. But if people don't mind log shots of mainly grey buildings under grey skies in Salford then have at it !

Literally he is so underrated

GxAce's stuff is so good. One of the few YTers I will purposefully wait to watch on my desktop or TV.

The most annoying thing about Justin talking about anything is his tendency to express a point with 8 different senstences. I can easily summarize his ten minutes video into 30 seconds video.

Facts. Still some gems out there. I still love Nigel Barros’ content and he has a second channel now haha (side-note, pretty funny how good the gh5 looks given many YouTubers dismiss it now lol. I’m realizing that a good 60% of the reason modern cameras seem to look so much better than cameras from 2014-2018 is because the skills of those reviewing cameras has gotten so much better. Nigel’s footage looks amazing. Obviously, there are absolutely valid reasons to upgrade still. But I’m realizing image quality is not as bad as I’m tempted to think on older cameras)

For once I'll give you all a reason not to get a new camera 🙂 The thing with the Komodo is you have to believe it's worth the hassle, in terms of cinema magic. Special sauce. And so on. The colour science is tip top, we all know that the codec is pretty special too. But cinema cameras are tanking in the lower-end of the market for a reason. They are clinging onto the sensor in a box concept without the convenience factor of a stills camera. They are still designed to be rigged up into something unwieldily, heavy and slow to operate. And in the past it was worth it for the image. But now that internal RAW video is commonplace on mirrorless cameras and you have a sensor as good as in the Z8 or EOS R3, the special sauce is right there along with the small body, small battery, power economy, EVF, IBIS and so on. Which makes cinema cameras completely obsolete. They now serve only non-creative functions like impressing clients or fitting existing workflow expectations. ARRI is still a bit special in terms of the cinema magic in the images, but you can't really say the same about the Komodo vs a $3k mirrorless camera. In fact I dare say the Sigma Fp-L has a more cinematic look in uncompressed 4K RAW mode.

I can only assume MPB must have now seen this thread, because they have given me nothing but radio silence on all channels since a week ago. The CEO himself Matt Baker, has now ignored 3 emails after starting off all chipper. A Sony RX1R which was described as having a bit of dust on the sensor (easy to disassemble and clean, I have done it before with one), turned out to have a laser damaged sensor with a string of damaged pixels. So if you do purchase from MPB make sure you are luckier than I have been.