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Hello, I hope everyone is well! Even though I’m not really active on camera forums anymore, I frequently read the EOSHD blog and every now and then the forum, so I saw the thread and thought I would respond. Because it wasn’t ”poof gone”, it was announced on the channel over a year ago and mentioned in the last three videos. Before going into why, super flattered that this thread exist. I mean that. So here are some thoughts on the matter and why I took it down. Hobby vs Work YouTube was never my job, just a hobby. So was video making and photography, in the beginning. When starting the channel I was working as a producer after a couple of years as a radio/TV reporter. So I started the channel to keep my practical skills fresh. And to keep up with the development, which was huge at the time. The DSLR revolution, Blackmagic, cheaper editors etc. Fast forward a couple of years and I started making more videos at work again. At the same time I pretty much lost all interest in doing it as a hobby. And actually canceled the channel. Winston Churchill was definitely right in saying that work and hobbies should not be too similar. But what I had discovered was a passion for still photography, which I had pretty much no experience with. So I started making videos again. That’s why my videos became very repetitive and short. I didn’t care about that part, I just wanted to display my stills work and get feedback, talk to the community, experiment with cameras and develop. After a few years I became a good enough photographer that my new employer noticed and just like that I was shooting stills professionally all the time. And I still do (I work in marketing and PR). It’s a huge bonus in my field and if you are good at it you will never be out of work. So photography also became less and less of a hobby. Instead I found other hobbies. They where things that for example got me out into nature, so photography tagged a long a while, as a secondary activity. But eventually it faded. It was also nice to do things and not share it with people. I know I probably could have a very successful channel by making videos about my current hobbies, and even make some money. But I never really wanted a channel for the sake of a channel. And always had a full time job. The fact is that at no point would I had been able to live of my channel, not even at the peak. Even with sponsors it was never more that a regular salary (in my field and country). But as long as it was a hobby and I was glad to do it, it was a welcome addition to finance camera gear. Time At the same time as my channel started to feel less fun and other hobbies started taking my time, I started a family. So.. you get the idea: full time job + family + 2-3 hobbies = no YouTube. Upkeep So why take it down, why not leave it for the community? I did.. at first. Like some of you pointed out, the YouTube crowd in the photography/video space is generally nice and positive. That is my experience as well. Early on I learned that a good way of keeping the trolls away was to be present. Respond and engage. Trolls are usually idiots or cowards, so they don’t like getting push back. But once I stopped making videos, views and comments obviously went down. But the trolls started coming back. Not so much after me, and I don’t care about that. But agains the community. The people commenting started being nasty towards each other. I felt a responsibility to moderate, which was annoying. That’s when the thought about simply removing it started to grow. It wasn’t an impuls. It was an internal debate that went on for months. And the issue grew much much larger than a couple of trolls. I started thinking about five years ahead, 10 years, 30 years.. This post is already way too long so I won’t go into all of it. But I think you get the idea when I say: Privacy or when the content no longer reflects the creator. Digital minimalism, control over one’s narrative, inactive or outdated content. Risk of misuse of content due to me not checking the terms updates. Closure. So there is a looong ramble :) To keep in spirit of the forum I can charge my current gear for pro work :) For the longest time I used the EOS-R for 75% of all my work and the R5 (rental) for the rest. It wasn’t mine but my employer told me to buy whatever I wanted. Paired it with a 28, 35 and 70-200. 70/30 stills/video. The R5 is peak camera imo. Today is a little different. I started working for a new company about a year ago and again was told to buy what I needed. I would have bought the R5 without hesitation if it wasn’t for the Sigma 35-150/2-2.8.. I just had to have it. So I ordered the Nikon Z6iii. It’s not as good overall as the R5 for me and what I like in a tool camera. But it’s 90% there. And coupled with that lens it’s becomes on par. //MB

I'm not really seeing any difference between any of them; S5, S1H, S5ii. Yes there are some very subtle differences such as that from the S1H is a teeny weeny bit softer due to the OLPF, but otherwise, nothing for me. There's some chatter about over-sharpening. I don't see it. There's some chatter about moire. I'm not seeing that either. Highlight roll off and blah di blah, - what are we shooting here with these things? Are we really comparing the results from our humble mirrorless cameras with Hollywood lighting, productions, lenses and budgets? I'm not, - to be even remotely in the ball park is hilariously ridiculous. Here's a screen grab from my S9 which is my principal run & gun unit, from last weekends wedding I am currently editing. A pretty dark hole of a room for bride prep and unless anywhere near that window, then screwed. It's SOOC and not touched it in any way; exposure, WB...nuffink. 6k 30p shot at 1/50th, 4000 iso, 5000 WB, Freewell ND 2-5, exposure otherwise eyeballed on the rear LCD with the wave form I rarely look at.

It turns out I am a bit wrong. ... That Micro Four Thirds was dead. Well near me, the G9 II came down to a much more sensible 1299 so I thought I'd give it a try. This thing... oh my gawd. Feel like putting the rest of my gear in the bin! This little box of joy is pure art in the handheld 4K/120p mode (and also in 5K open gate). The colour science, slow mo and IBIS are so, so good. The new GH7 sensor is quite something. Beautiful filmic quality to it. And I thought IBIS was good on the full frame Panasonic cameras or Olympus OM-1 but this is taking the biscuit now. You can just stand there and get a completely static frame especially in 120fps. I keep putting shutter at 1 second for long expose stills, pin sharp...The first camera that can really lay claim to being a tripod killer, in my view. Then there's the image processing... It totally defies the price. The new sensor just looks so clean in low light and dynamic range is fantastic. The real-time LUTs look stunning here. No other Micro Four Thirds camera has nearly as good colour processing (except the more expensive GH7), so in this sense I prefer it even to the Olympus OM-1 with the lovely Olympus skin tones. In some ways it is better than a flagship $4k full frame cam... I am not joking. Not missing a full frame sensor that much to be honest. It has the dynamic range, the low light, the resolution, and with a fast enough lens... the full frame look as well. The Metabones Speed Booster 0.64x fits without scraping the sensor-box. Also, the EVF is enormous and totally defies the price. Criticisms? Autofocus is very lens dependant - it's still a bit rubbish with the older stuff and adapters. Also no ProRes LT like the X-H2... With two SD card slots, it limits you only to 1080p in ProRes mode which is a bit silly... but the high-res stuff is available if you plug in an SSD via USB. GH7 has an advantage there for sure. But in plain old 10bit H.265 the image is superb. I think this body design suits the smaller lenses too... You know I'm not the greatest fan of the S5 II body design, well it is growing on me here... Micro Four Thirds and small stuff seems to go well with the G9 II / S5 II body design. It starts to make more sense. The sharp angles cut in less, camera as a whole is lighter, the grip is sufficient for everything and it's got that "GH2 feel" when you put the tiny 20mm F1.7 pancake on there whereas the S5 II with the larger lenses doesn't have that same charm to it. I am inclined to say Micro Four Thirds LOOK is back too... It's an antidote to predominance of a super shallow depth of field in commercial work and Netflix. It really makes me want to fully commit again to the system as it just does SO MUCH, far more than any full frame camera remotely affordable. It does more than a Sony a1 II FFS!

Tianluokeng Tulou clusters, Fujian Province, China. These buildings have a very thick outer wall of earth and a 3-5 storey inner wooden structure that houses dozens of families. The structure is designed to be stable during earthquakes and secure against bandits. The oldest if the ones we visited was built in 1796. These are just with a quick grade, mostly Resolve Film Look Creator. The DR in the scene is extreme, and while all the required info is in the files, I'm going to have to go heavy on the power-windows when I grade these properly. Grabs from GH7 + 14-140mm zoom. Grabs from iPhone 17 Pro shooting Prores Log with default app. The Prores HQ Apple Log files grade really nicely, have heaps of DR, and are great to work with. The DR isn't quite as much as the GH7, but it's more than enough for these scenes. These were graded at a different time to the above GH7 shots so probably don't match. All-in-all, the iPhone well and truly punches above its weight when you take into account it's pocketability, the size of the sensor, and the incredible range in focal lengths. Imagine how much you'd have to pay to get a lens that can do 13-200mm FF equivalent FOV and has exposure levels between F1.78 and F2.8 across the whole range.

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

Went hot-air ballooning and if there was ever a challenge for shooting, this was it. Extreme low-light and extreme DR from hugely bright light-sources. They say you can't take bags in the balloon, and it had been really wet weather, so I decided to go small. I took the GX85, TTartisans 17mm F1.4 for the low-light, Laowa 7.5mm F2 for an ultra-wide, and the 12-35mm F2.8. I was a bit cheeky and took a sling bag and kept it under my jacket. The requirement is that nothing is loose in the basket and that you can hold on with both hands for landing, so I figured my bag under my jacket was basically the same as having a big pocket. It's a crazy early start. We arrived in the field before first-light and they started setting up in pitch darkness guided only by torches. I started shooting at F1.7 and needed ISO6400 at first to get any kind of level on anything except their torches. I shot on the 17mm at F1.7 and gradually reduce the ISO until the balloon was mostly inflated, then swapped to the 7.5mm for a few wide shots, and then swapped to the 12-35mm F2.8 and it was time to get in the balloon and off we went. I also shot with my iPhone 12 mini for some quick shots using the ultra-wide when I didn't want to change lenses, and also as we were approaching landing, as I had put the camera away in anticipation. It was super-foggy and the pilot ended up having to land early and for a while we were going pretty close to the treetops so I'd put my camera away when he told us that he'd be landing at the next opportunity. Frame grabs.. mix of GX85 and iPhone, put through a quite moderate FLC pipeline. In retrospect I took the complete wrong equipment and used it in the wrong way (so, it's business as usual!) but the FLC pipeline really took the footage to the next level, and I used just enough strength on the film emulation to get rid of the digital look to the images. Here's a comparison. Grade (same as above): SOOC: The GX85 has super-whites so despite being SOOC that image is actually slightly clipped in-post and some highlights can be recovered, which the FLC grade has done, but you get the idea. The SOOC is with the GX85 default profile and has much more of a video look to it, despite being pretty good compared to other similar cameras. If I was to take the same equipment again, I'd lean into the darkness and just use the 17mm at F2.0 where it cleans up and use the GX85 at something sensible like ISO1600. This would have the early shots as perhaps being unusable, but it would mean that the torches the crew used wouldn't have been clipped (I clipped them in favour of exposing what they were shining on). We're going to go again later this year, and for that I plan to take the GH7, 9mm F1.7 and 14-140mm F3.5-5.6. This will be a much larger setup but if I use a neck strap then I only have to have one lens in a pocket and so I won't need a bag at all. I just bought the 9mm F1.7 and it's sharp wide-open, so apart from having AF, it is both an ultra-wide as well as a low-light lens. I can crop in-camera and/or in-post to get a tighter FOV, but you don't normally need long focal-lengths when it's that dark. The more I use this FLC pipeline the more I like it. If I'd have shown these images to my 2018 self, I wouldn't have believed me when I said that it was me that made them.

Funnily enough, a former client from 2014 contacted me today to say that she had 'lost' her wedding video and did I still have it? After I stopped laughing, I thought hang on, it is probably still on Vimeo. And it was. I thought it would look so dated and be an utter cringe-fest, but actually it wasn't and I was a bit surprised. It was shot on the GH3.

My favourite AI outcome would be for it to fuck right off.

As many of you will have guessed, I’m not a rich teenage kawaii girl so take my opinion on this camera with a grain of matcha. What I am though is a member the unspoken demographic for it which is the jaded old photographer with a bad back. So I’m not her, I’m not you and you aren’t either of us so I’m predicting your mileage will vary wildly. Which is a good thing. I enjoy it for what it is, a genuinely pocketable holiday camera that makes me take silly snaps with far more frequency than I would do with a “real” camera because I’ve long since understood that holiday doesn’t mean assignment. Anyway, some silly soft, noisy snaps I took with it. Could I have taken these with my phone and at likely better quality ? Of course but the question is would I? No, because getting my phone out of my pocket and wrestling with it like a wet fish when I see something interesting is not my idea of using a camera.

Welcome back! Can you tell me your name? Where are we? What year is it? Good, good... You've been in a DOF-induced coma for the last 7 years. We'll contact your families and let them know you've woken up - they'll be very happy to see you!

Mid season report. Actually, I am nearing end of season with just 2 more jobs to go this year until June next…which is quite normal for me. The TDLR is I almost love it… Why ‘almost’? I’ll get to that… The Good = The body design actually. Yes I would rather Lumix had moved to a body style more like the FX3, but I guess they thought that might scare photographers who expect a hump. Whatever the reason, it’s not as innovative as it could have been and despite not having a top screen, really is like a smaller S1H in the hand and IMO, that is a good thing. In my hands, with no battery grip or any other adornment other than the smallest Senheisser mic, it feels just right in terms of size, weight, build, comfort, ergos. It’s a true hybrid. It would be even better with an internal electronic VND, but hey ho, maybe that will come with the S1H2? With 5x C1-5 custom settings and a simple photo-video switch, it’s fabulous for hybrid work. I don’t even use all 5 photo and 5 video settings, but have it set up basically as: landscape photo, portrait/candid outdoor, portrait/candid indoor and low-light, all with a starting f stop, aperture, WB, ISO and equivalent matching settings for video so it’s actually only one flick of a switch to flip between video and stills in any given scenario. Brilliant. The sensor. 44mp. Perfect 👌 for me sweet spot between the more traditional 24mp and the 100mp of the bigger MF sensors. Suits both photo and video. Video files and capability. I shoot 7.2k 30p open gate and the file sizes are not huge or slow to work with. With baked in conversion LUT, SOOC I love them. Yes raw would be even better, but an almighty faff and overkill for my needs. The open gate allows any number of crops, 30p a 20% reduction in speed on a timeline and the 7.2k quite a bit of scope for punching in etc. Having said that, not fully edited a finished production yet but I have checked and edited a few bits here and there and it’s even better than the 6K I was using before which itself was better than the 4K from Lumix FF cameras so thumbs up. The Not So Good = Battery life is pretty poor. I’ve always scoffed at people reporting poor battery life and never experienced it on any camera. Until now. It’s not great, but a spare battery in my pocket at all times is how I now roll and is what it is. AF accuracy for video is good but not Sony level. Ditto for photo. Having come directly from an A7RV, I’d give the nod to the Sony for ultimate outright stills quality and AF, but the S1RII gets the nod for video and body. I don’t think there is anything else other than I have a pair of them matched with the 35mm f1.8 on one and the 85mm f1.8 on the other. The S9 is on lighter duties of video only, mostly longer than clips and sometimes even full length ceremonies and speeches and has only overheated once and that was on a very hot day in direct sunlight. The S1RII by the way, I have never even had a warning and has never got hot to touch, - just the usual warmth you might expect shooting a thing all day long. I may replace the S9 next year with an S1IIE for a bit more robustness and utility, but waiting to see if any S1H2 appears before doing that, if I do that. Almost certainly will trade the Sigma 28-70mm f2.8 for the new Lumix 24-60mm f2.8 next year as I think it will suit my needs better and appears to offer better AF and detail/rendering. S5II soldiers on in its static role and just does what I need it to do. I do need to find a way to get rid of the battery grip and the heavy tripod however and working on that… So ‘almost’ love it. It’s the battery life and good but not stellar AF plus the less than exciting body design that drops it 2 points for me so I’ll give it an 8/10. Along with the Z8, probably the best all round hybrid camera available today? At least for my needs. Taking into account lens options and prices.

That is all. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

Official review, mentioned in another thread, it’s fucking awesome. I didn’t expect to like it as much as I do, but actually… So the OG S5 I really liked and I switched from Fuji for video and stills because I wanted a full frame system over a cropped one. For a while, I actually carried on shooting a ‘cropped system’ for video because the 4k 50p in the S5/S1H/S5ii is of course cropped, so it was more for the stills I wanted full frame. My overall feeling at the time was it was a marginal step up, but nothing anyone else would really notice. Bought a pair of S1R’s and whilst the image quality could not be questioned, did not care for the body too much and it was just a bit old school DSLR and too different from the S5 and S1H. Bought an S1H for video. Stellar camera. Would still be using it today if it just had a couple of features the S5ii has. But it doesn’t so had to eventually go. S5ii’s became my video workhorses and can’t really fault them but hated them for stills, especially coming from S1R and S1H which were MUCH better IMO as photo cameras. S9. Bought it. Sold it. Bought it back again. Love it, - my favourite run & gun video camera ever. Yes I have a few niggles with it such as it’s too easy to knock the dials etc and when I thought I was shooting 1/100th notice I am shooting 1/80th or 1/160th from time to time and aaaargh. I need to look at maybe even just a small bit of tape or something to prevent that. S1Rii vs Sony A7RV and Nikon Zf, because it has replaced both of those cameras. Vs the A7RV I’d say it’s about equal. Near identical sized and handling bodies, build, rear LCD’s etc with zero real world image quality difference. The Sony is a touch better in the AF department but not by much. Vs the Zf, the Zf is more ‘fun’ and my favourites point & shoot camera ever and again, very little real world image quality or AF difference, but the Lumix is a better lens platform and as a single body over a pair, it’s very very good. Pros: Size, weight, handling, build, image quality, hybrid crop zoom. Cons: I honestly haven’t really got any. I was hoping originally for the sensor from the Leica SL3 and a mini S1H body and whilst we did not get the former, I’m over that and re. the latter, it actually has that vibe. I had a few minor niggles first job I shot it, but then realised I had missed a few things on the set up so tweaked those areas for the job I am currently working on. What’s missing and any other comments? Well as above, hated the 28-200 zoom and it’s going back. I prefer primes but recognise they are not always practical for what I do or shorter zooms, preferably with internal zooming (or at least very short extension) are my preference. And do not care for slow, variable aperture lenses. So it’s going back and getting the lens that I know will work for me and that is the Sigma 28-45mm f1.8. What is missing for me now is just one more lens, a same size but longer focal length to the above lens, ie, something like a 45-90 f1.8 internal zoom. Please Sigma, make this lens 🙏 But for now, I will have to make do with hybrid zoom which is a bit of a revelation to me. It’s a massive thumbs up from me and now having 1 less camera, 3 less lenses and everything in one system, just a much better way of working.

According to a book, Dutch company ASML got into a big fight with Nikon a few years back. They both make lithography tools for semiconductors industry. ASML's optics supplier is Zeiss. To pressure Nikon into a settlement, they had to take the patent fight to them in cameras. So ASML got Zeiss to make them a camera. It also doubled as a marketing adventure, shown off in stores but rarely really ever in stock. Until one day this popped up on my radar, with the serial number XXX XXX. The AF wasn't working, or the manual focus (fly by wire), lens stuck at macro 30cm. So I cracked it open, mopping sweat off forehead. Inside is 256GB SSD, final release model was bumped to 512GB. Android 6, with Zeiss test suite of apps onboard including FCC certification test suite 🙂 A music player. A Dutch full frame 36 megapixel sensor with some analogue colour. A Zeiss 35mm F2 lens (but different optics to the Sony RX1), 4K video (Super 35mm crop) and an EVF. And some weird prototype issues. I'll make a YouTube video on it. Sample shot And I still have no idea how I fixed the AF. Just wiggled the lens and sensor ribbon cables a bit and it started working properly, but there was no sign of either cable being loose in the first place! It is quite a fun tool, and a bit different. Android is decently snappy on it, the camera app is well designed, the physical dials are lovely but it doesn't have a joystick or command dials... So a lot is on the touch screen, but it's well done. Shall I root it? Update to 3.0 production firmware? (Risks bricking it). Given the rarity factor... I probably won't!!

Fro Knows Photo - NEW SONY FX1 MADE ME SHIT MYSELF Gerald Undone - SONY FX1 is a bedwetting moment Philip Bloom - FX1 CURED MY LOVE OF CATS Jordan Drake - I JIZZED MY PANTS BECAUSE OF SONY Camera Conspiracies - SONY FX1 ABSOLUTELY CRAP VLOGGING CAMERA Camera Labs - SONY FX1 has been released and it shoots video Tony and Chelsea Northrup -

Not cinematic enough. I fixed it for you. Now that's cinematic.

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

Autofocus!

I live on the Detroit River... still plenty of Prohibition-era smuggling relics in this area- secret canals and tunnels and such. Maybe I should get a little dinghy and start making midnight runs for barrels full of bodies and lenses 😄

Great value in every country in the world except the US where it will cost 17,000 US dollars.

Maybe they meant their OWN FX3 rather than Sony’s.

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.

Really sad if he has indeed given up on YouTube. He's still on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/mattiasburling Maybe we should ask him if he's alright?

Ok, first 2 week trip behind with the ZR, 35mm F1.4, 50mm F1.2 and 135mm F1.8 Plena and here are some thoughts about the ZR. First the good sides. The ZR screen worked well enough for nailing focus and exposure, even when shooting into shadows in bright daylight, but you may want to max the screen brightness. Zooming into the image with the zoom lever was handier than with Z6iii plus and minus buttons. Even with screen brightness maxed occasionally battery lasted about as well as Z6iii with it’s EVF on normal brightness. Had to use 2nd battery only a few times during 4-5 hour shooting days in cold, 0 to 10C conditions. Brought also the Smallgrip L cage with me, but did not use it, as it makes the ZR body taller than Z6iii and about similar weight. Even with 1kg lenses ZR felt quite comfortable to use and hold, but as a climber my fingers are not the weakest. I missed the Z6iii EVF a bit, but used now also different shooting angles and heights more due to the bigger screen being handier than EVF for that. 32bit float saved the few clipped audios I had pretty well, even though I don’t know if it is true 32bit pipeline from Rode wireless go mic to the ZR. Still, the audio sounded a bit better than what I have gotten with Z6iii and Rode. Exposing clips with R3D NE took at first a bit more time than with NRaw, but by using high zebras set to 245, waveform, and Cinematools false color and Rec.709 clipping LUTs it was quite easy to avoid crushed blacks and clipped highlights. R3D NE has manual WB, so I took always a picture first and set the WB by using the picture as preset. It worked pretty well, but not perfectly every time. Shot also NRaw in between to compare, but used auto A1 WB for it. It seems the auto WB did not always work perfectly either, but it was relatively easy to get R3D NE and NRaw to match WB wise in post. In highlights R3D NE clips earlier than NRaw and it was clearly seen in the zebras and waveform. Still with R3D NE there was not much need to over expose and even with under exposing I needed to use NR only in a couple of clips, where I under exposed too much. On last year’s trip with Z6iii, when it didn’t have the 1.10 FW yet, that improved the shadow noise pattern, I needed to use NR in many clips, until I realised I could raise high zebras from 245 to 255 without clipping. With R3D NE and NRaw 4 camera buttons and one lens button was enough. I had 3D LUT and WB added to My menu and that mapped to a button, so it was quite fast to change display LUTs or WB. WB mapped directly to a button or added in i menu won’t let you set the WB by taken picture as preset. WB se to i menu let’s you measure the white point and set that though. In post I preferred the R3D NE colors over NRaw in almost all of the clips I took, except in few clips where NRaw had more information in the highlights. Changing NRaw to R3D with NEV to R3D hack brought NRaw grading closer to R3D NE, but they were still not exactly the same. NRaw as NRaw seemed to have more blueish image in some of the clips due to the blue oversaturation issue it has, but the NEV to R3D hack fixes that. Then the bad sides. After coming home I picked the Z6iii, looked through it’s EVF, felt all of it’s buttons and thought, this is still the better camera, a proper one. Z6iii has also focus limiter and mech sutter which both I missed during the trip. The worst part became pretty clear after every shooting day. Not the R3D NE file sizes itself, but the lack of software support to be able to save only the trimmed parts of R3D NE clips. Currently Davinci Resolve saves the whole clips without trims, even though NRaw works just fine, and Red Cine x pro gives an error during R3D trim export. If you happen to fill 2TB card a day with R3D NE, you need to save now everything. I saved like 6TB of footage from this trip when it could have been only 600GB. If this does not get fixed I could as well shoot NRaw with Z6iii and get rid of the damn ZR. Changing trimmed NEV files to R3D does not work either, as Resolve does not import the files. ZR is fun to shoot, no doubt about it, but it’s R3D NE workflow is almost unusable at the moment, at least for my use.

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

I initially dismissed the Nikon ZR. The compact body and odd I/O layout made it seem like a prosumer crossover rather than a serious tool. After spending real time shooting with it, that impression completely changed. The huge integrated display transforms the experience. It feels intuitive, immersive, and for the first time a Nikon mirrorless seems built for video operators. Pair with a Leica M lens and it delivers this uncanny mix of smartphone agility and FF cinematic depth, a combo that feels surprisingly liberating (think sigma FP but with IBIS). The body is metal and feels rock solid. The flip out screen isn’t ideal for low angle work, but that’s about the only ergonomic miss. The stills side remains capable and thoughtfully separated from the video mode. The redesigned video interface finally feels modern, with waveform, quick exposure tools, and four customizable banks all within reach. The main system menu still feels like a maze, but the dedicated video page is a major step toward a proper cine oriented workflow. I just hope Nikon will pull more from the RED side (traffic lights, open gate, 17:9 etc) in a firmware update. Despite its understated design, the ZR stands out as Nikon’s most forward-thinking hybrid yet. The 32-bit float audio, internal R3D recording, and that massive touch display all combine into a package that feels disruptive and modern at a mid-tier price point. Haven't been this tempted by a camera in a while.

Going back to the GH7, one thing that surprised me on the trip was the GH7 + Voigtlander 42.5mm F0.95 + Sirui 1.25x anamorphic adapter combination. When I saw that the Sirui was under USD300 / AUD500 I was stunned as anamorphic was something that I had dismissed as simply being inaccessible to me - too expensive / difficult / complicated. I ordered it immediately. When my tests revealed it was quite happy paired with the Voigtlander F0.95 primes shot wide open, I decided to take the 42.5mm on the trip with me as a creative experiment. The FF horizontal equivalent for the 17.5mm and adapter is 28mm F1.5, which is interesting but I'm not a huge fan of the 28mm FOV, so I chose the 42.5mm lens to pair with it, which gives an equivalent of 68mm F1.5. It's a longer lens for street shooting, but will give me some distance to work with (useful for a rig that is as large as this combination) and will give some great shallow DOF too. Here are some sample frame grabs from the night markets in Xiamen Island, China. When I used it in Hong Kong I found the focal length really came into its own. There were so many layers and so much movement, the best shots are just a confusing mess without the motion that helps you identify what is going on. Here are some more minimal frames. I have pushed the grade in these very heavily. Loads of contrast and vignetting and a strong application of Film Look Creator too. The Voigtlanders are soft wide-open too, adding to the look. IIRC these images were shot with the lens stopped down a bit (I'd forgotten my ND filter!) so it can be quite well behaved. It has sent me down a rabbit hole of looking at how to get a more vintage S35 / FF look. More on that later. My mini-review of the Sirui is this: It's very affordable It's large and heavy, but build quality feels very good and seems to have tight tolerances It's sharp It doesn't flare much at all, even shooting in the streets at night I only saw flares on a few occasions when the headlights of a car hit the lens just right The focusing mechanism is a joy, I used one finger to focus it for a lot of the time I was using it The bokeh is surprisingly cats-eye / swirly, and doesn't have that strong a vertical stretch (at 1.25x it's only a mild squeeze factor so that makes sense) It has a bit of coma with bright lights If you like what you see above, I'd recommend it. I started off thinking that my bag was very heavy and not taking this combo next trip would be a good way to lighten my luggage a bit, and on the trip home was thinking that I'll take it everywhere and just pack less clothes.

It's official! 🤯 https://x.com/Blackmagic_News/status/1965611991441252600

Cue all those who recently made, ‘Why I moved to Lumix’ pieces on YouRube gushing over the S1II, scrabbling for a piece of the Canon pie. Or Nikon pie. There’s 24 hours between the two so plenty of time to choose which ship to jump to next.

Had a fun time trying out my X-M5 micro cinema rig on a low budget, 3 day music video shoot last week. No overheating or issues of any kind shooting 6.2k prores raw in open gate mode to an Ninja V+. Insane what this little guy can do for an $800 purchase (body).

Although it's not exactly what you're looking for, I'd have to second the Nikon Series E lenses. They truly are remarkable little lenses. I haven't been able to find a good copy of the 35mm 2.5 but the 36-72, 50mm and 100mm are nice little lenses, especially the size of the 100mm. Also the older non-ai lenses are pretty spectacular as well. One lens I hate to mention because it does get such bad reviews is the 35-70 3.3-4.5 ai-s lens. It's tiny and a lot better than the bad reviews give it. I mean, it isn't great, but there's something very Nikon in its not greatness. Another zoom lens I love, which I assume you're familiar with is the Canon FD 35-105mm 3.5. This lens is ALMOST parfocal. Obviously constant aperture. Internal zoom. Fairly compact. I've had a few copies over the years, then end up selling it because I didn't use it too often, regret it and seek another one. My most recent copy I put on the Sigma FP and here's a sample of it at 105mm wide open... No mind-blowing image by any means, but fairly sharp wide open and I like the way it handles the highlights. Of course it's a mess in direct light... as I found out last week during a shoot. However, there are rumors that Canon considered putting the L badge onto it because they were so happy with the lens. As far as primes, other than the Nikons, the Takumar lenses are a personal favorite of mine. I've heard people argue that the 28mm 3.5 is one of the best 28mm lenses they've used. I haven't used that one but the 35mm 3.5 is excellent. I've used a couple of the wide angle Tokina lenses from the late 70s, early 80s and they were decent, but I think they were f/2.8 lenses. Obviously you could get a cheap Neewer fixed ND to pop on the lens and leave there to give you that slower stop and to protect the front of the lens. Also check out the old Vivitar lenses, I have a set of mostly Tokina made ones in the m42 mount and I have always been very fond of them. The image instantly feels like an old 70s made for TV movie. I'm probably going to sell them though, not because I don't like them, I just have too much stuff and really need to scale back. I guess you could also look at some of the older Zeiss Jena lenses... even the MF ones would give you the slower apertures you were looking for wide open. Great thread! Wish there were more threads like this on here like it.

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.

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.

I have the S1RII and the S1II. I also still have the old S1 and S5. The S1II is the same than the S5II about video details, even if some youtubers said the details rendering has improved, it's not true at all. Same bad rendering as the S5II. I understand some people are not bothered or can't see the difference and it's nothing wrong about that, but the difference is clear by example if you zoom inside your videos on people faces. Like the S5II, there is a sort of rough detail sharpening and in the same time a lack of very fine details. As always V-log looks better than the 709 profiles but it's still not great in my opinion. The S1RII also has the same detail rendering and I was very disappointed by the 6,4K Open Gate, it was not better than the 6K of the S5II, maybe even worse, like if this mode used a tiny bit of binning like the 5,9K 16:9. The new 7,2K is ok and looks better than the 6,4K. The 8,1K Open Gate is even better but limited to 24fps. Even if the video engine is the same between the S1II, S5II and S1RII, the later has much more resolution in 8K, hence the fine details looks finer even with the bad processing. it's only when the footage is a bit underexposed or overexposed that the S1 6K looks better. I read somewhere something interesting about Real Time Lut, using a burned in lut with a good amount of contrast helps to recover fine details. When recording V-log without Real Time Lut and grading in post, some fine details can't be recovered. I can confirm it's true. So using Real Time Lut V-log on the S1RII in 8,1K Open Gate is the best for details rendering. I'm glad Panasonic has fixed the colored pixels issue in Prores Raw on the S1RII and now the footage looks great, same details rendering than on the S1 or S5. But it's really crazy we must use Prores Raw to get the same good details rendering than on the S1 or S5 H264/265. And the crop is a shame, 1,45x ! When cameras like the Z8 or Z6III offer 6K or 8K 60fps raw video without crop ... About the S1II, Prores Raw only has a minimal crop (about 1,05/1,1x I think) and it was the main reason I bought this camera. Like on the S1RII, Prores Raw is excellent and like it has much less crop, fine details looks even sharper (in a good way). Finally we have a Panasonic camera with not only excellent IBIS but also excellent detail rendering and good AF without using external recorder (even if Prores raw is a pain for the workflow). The only issue I found is the 240fps 1080p mode, it is clearly not finalised because some horizontal lines appear randomly. I also found the photo raw files of the S1II and S1RII to be slightly less contrasty than the S5 and S1, they have less that punchy looks and I still prefer the rendering of the S5 and S1 with my best lenses like the 50mm S or 24-70mm Pro. it can be because of ACR but the JPEGs out of the cameras also looks slightly less contrasty than on the S5 and S1. Other than that, IBIS is stellar but sometimes more digital than on the G9II or GH7, color science is good but not as good as the GH6 to my eyes. The S1II also has better AF than the S1RII and I can feel the difference. Compared to Nikon, Lumix has several advantages like the IBIS and Open Gate. L-mount also has great "practical" lenses but I think they lack really great lenses with very nice rendering and more pancakes. After using most of the L-mount lenses, only a few looks really fantastic, like the 50mm S Pro (if it has not the coating issue), 24-70mm S Pro, 28-45mm Sigma and the APO Summicron SL. While absolutely great, the APO SL are really too much expensive for most people and it will be hard to attract a lot of people in the system, it is why Lumix try to attract people with smaller lenses and never released again new S Pro lenses since 2019/2020. Nikon has better AF most of the time but also more great lenses. The 50mm f1.8 is much better than the Lumix, the Nikon 35mm/50mm/85mm f1.2 and 135mm f1.8 are some of the best lenses you can buy. You can also adapt Sony FE lenses and there are more interesting "cheap" lenses available from third party manufacturers like Viltrox (mainly the 35mm f1.2 and 135mm f1.8).

Congratulations on your purchase! I have the GX85, which apparently is very similar to the GX80, but you might notice small differences perhaps, so I guess maybe not everything I say below will apply to you. I shoot run-n-gun fast-paced stuff so probably very similar to the challenges you are facing. Here is how I setup and use my GX85. This is the screen, showing lots of handy info. Going from top right, here's what I do. I use the custom modes to store different configurations. In this case, it's in C3 and that is fully-manual. You can't set the mode (ie, PASM) once you've created the custom mode, you need to create the custom mode with the right PASM mode. To do this you choose the right PASM mode that you want to use using the top dial, then save that configuration to the custom mode with the "Cust Set Mem" function, and then you can change to that custom mode using the top dial and then further customise that custom mode. I use the standard profile. I've done lots of testing and the standard profile is the most flexible if you're going to further tweak the colours in post. If not, feel free to choose whatever mode you like. I use focus peaking and have set it to a custom button to switch between the high and low sensitivities. I use this in combination with making the display black and white so the peaking is more visible. No flash. 4k 24p. I've setup back-button focus. This means the camera is in MF mode, but I have configured the AE/AF Lock button to enable AF while you hold it down. The way I shoot with an AF lens is to push in that button, see what it focuses on (which is obvious because of the peaking) and then I release the button, then I hit record. This means that the focus doesn't change during the shot. This means the focus isn't hunting around all over the place, it's not focusing on the persons hand or on the person that walks in between you and your subject, it doesn't focus on the background if they move in frame, etc. It won't follow them if their focus distance changes, which can ruin some shots, but my experience is that AF jumping around ruins more shots than the subject moving does. Plus, if the subject moves slightly the aesthetic of them being slightly out of focus for a bit is far less objectionable than the AF jumping around for no reason. IBIS is enabled. IBIS gets a lot of criticism but if you stand still and hold the camera as still as you can then the IBIS will simply help you to be more stable and the jitters and jello effects can be reduced entirely. Shooting in fast situations means that tripods and monopods are often too slow and cumbersome, but if you try and emulate a tripod by using IBIS (or better yet, combine IBIS with OIS from a stabilised lens) then you can easily get very stable hand-held shots that with a tiny bit of stabilisation in post can be perfectly locked off without and artefacts at all. I set my AF to be in the middle of the frame, which combined with back-button focus is really fast and usable. Even if you do the photography thing of putting the subject in the middle, doing AF, then setting up your composition, it all works perfectly. I expose using the histogram. Exposure is a big topic, but I have done extensive testing and have concluded the following. In the Standard profile, you can do quite significant changes to exposure and WB in-post, even with simple tools, if you keep the exposure in the middle. The limits are that if something is clipped then it's clipped (of course!) and if it's in the noise floor then it's also gone. Apart from that, you have lots of flexibility. Audio meters show the levels. I use auto-levelling, but audio isn't really a big part of what I do and if you only shoot short clips like I do then any variation in level that it introduces isn't going to be much over a short clip, and it saves more shots by adjusting itself than it ruins. You can always set it to manual if you like. Aperture and shutter speed. I always use 1/50s when I shoot manually. Adjust as you see fit, depending on if you want to expose with shutter speed and not use a vND. Personally, I find that not having the exposure going up and down randomly is a good thing, and adjusting the shutter speed with the dial is just as painful as adjusting a vND. If you're using a manual lens then you can just set the camera once, and then all your controls are on the lens (vND, aperture, focus) so that's a really nice way of working. Lighting doesn't change that much, especially in daytime exteriors, so it's not a big deal. I've swapped to a high quality 2-5 stop vND and it's got enough range for daytime if you're willing to stop down a bit during the brightest bits. In busy outdoor situations you don't want to blur the crap out of the background anyway, so stopping down is actually more relevant than isolating subjects to the point where the shot could have been taken anywhere. The exposure meter is sometimes useful, but it's dumb. For example if you're shooting a person and a white van drives past in the background it thinks that you should change the exposure. Obviously that's dumb because you're shooting the person and not the van. ISO200 = base ISO. This camera doesn't have great high-ISO, so stick to base ISO when you can. WB = 5600K. I shoot exclusively in this mode. After using auto-WB for many years, I've come to realise that while different lights appear different with a fixed WB, things look like what they are. During the day things look right, sunset looks very warm but looks right, fluorescent lights look green but that also looks right. I rarely change WB in post now, and if I do it's to even out and tiny variations between shots just to polish the final video. My final piece of advice is to get a native zoom lens. Either the 12-35mm F2.8 or 14-140mm F3.5-5.6 are great, but the 14-42mm kit lens is also very capable and not to be underestimated. In complex situations you are often restricted in where you can move to, and will often want to zoom in to control your compositions. Having AF speeds up your shooting substantially, especially when you might only have seconds to get rolling when you see a moment about to happen. Happy to discuss further if you have questions, and I recommend searching around here, I've been posting lots of stuff over the years, including lots of tests and sharing what I have learned. Also happy to talk about strategies for shooting coverage, etc. Once you buy the gear and learn the settings you can make a video. It's what's in front of the camera and what's behind the camera that determine how good that video will be.

"Canon doesn't want you to know about this camera" "This camera changes everything" "Why I sold all my gears to get this camera" "Why Hollywood loves cropped 4k"

I went with the GH6 again for for a few reasons... 1. Official Arri LogC profile - it's even embedded in the metadata, so FCPX reads it as Arri footage. For someone who will probably never shoot with an Alexa, I must admit it's a stupidly cool thing... 2. ProRes 3. IBIS 4. Flip up screen Honorable Mention - I didn't realize how good the preamps in it were going to be. With good mic placement, some of the audio is perfectly usable.

As usual, Media Division has one of the best review

I feel for them a little bit. Full-frame mirrorless camera with a 24.1MP partially stacked CMOS sensor Powered by a Venus Engine for fast processing, refined colour and low noise Over 15 stops of dynamic range with Dual Native ISO support 1.6x faster Phase Hybrid AF system with 779 focus points and AI tracking Records uncropped 5.1K open gate video at up to 60p and 6K at 30p Supports 5.9K 60p and 5.8K Apple ProRes internal recording via CFexpress C4K and 4K video recording up to 120p in 10-bit for high frame rate capture 10-bit HEIF captures rich tonal detail, smaller file sizes and HDR-ready stills Real-time LUT preview and false colour for on-set monitoring Features 8-stop in-body image stabilisation without crop 32-bit float audio recording achieved via optional XLR adapter Dual card slots with CFexpress Type B and SD UHS-II support Supports direct USB-SSD recording for high bitrate capture and fast offloading Compatible with UltraSync BLUE for wireless Bluetooth timecode sync Blackout-free electronic burst shooting up to 70fps for fast action capture Tilt and vari-angle 3.0-inch LCD with 1.84M-dot resolution 5.76M-dot OLED EVF with 100% frame coverage and high refresh rate Dust and splash-resistant body, weighing only 800g Includes a 3-month Capture One licence in the box After producing something with that spec, they're entitled to be a bit like.. By the same token, we are probably entitled to say "we might have been a couple of years ago and if it was cheaper". I've said it before but the S5ii continues to be Panasonic's problem child in that it raised expectation for the 2nd generation of cameras and at a price that was pretty surprising. That camera got the upgraders from Panasonic's MFT cameras (myself included) and this new one is asking the question "2x the price, 2x the camera?" for both the holdouts of to the MFT system and those who already moved up to the S5ii and are looking to go up again. I think it probably is 2x the camera for some people but I can't see anyone who isn't in the L mount prison (and that is what L mount is) walking into a shop and paying 50% more for it over the Z6iii let alone paying the 10% more than a lightly used Z8. Hard reality is that they are not Nikon, Canon or even Sony and they're going to struggle with flagship cameras. Annoyingly for them, they can create the cameras that will attract a premium price technology wise and produce a fine image as they've been doing it for years with Leica branded versions but, again, when it comes to the other type of image they aren't Leica. They have the opportunity to do a FujiFilm and offer an alternative but they've left them to it to pursue two companies that absolutely out heritage them and another company that they are at the mercy of when it comes to sensors. This will all end with someone at corporate HQ dispassionately looking at the Lumix division and striking a red pen through it. Exactly like what happened to Samsung. Cameras that I think they could look at doing to offer some difference would be : New GX80 with the bulk of the GH7 inside or at the very least the GH5 and then not charge a stupid amount of money for it as it should be possible for sub £1000. A Super35 bridge camera with a 7x or even 5x zoom, no compromise video internals, ND and then not charge a stupid amount of money for it as it should be possible for sub £2000. Essentially a grown up version of the FZ2000. I'd buy either of those and I don't think I'd be alone. Currently, Lumix are like the smart, quirky indie girl that you fell in love with and now ten years later she's got hair extensions, fake tits, a trout pout and two ton of fillers because she wants to be a Kardashian.

Feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone where Gerald releases a glowing review of it, while Lumix users are stressing out about it before using it. It's usually the opposite!

I'm with Andrew. If the leaked specifications are confirmed, I find these two cameras to be completely dull, boring, and uninspired. I don't work in research and development, nor in the marketing department but I was a loyal customer and so I really don't understand the strategy (if there is a strategy). You have 5% of the market and you present two absolutely anonymous cameras that don't stand out from the multitude of cameras sold by the market leaders. You can't afford 6 full-frame cameras. What we all loved about Panasonic was its ability to stand out from the rest. In a market completely dominated by the usual players, it was able to innovate. Now that drive has been completely lost. Precisely because you are constantly losing market share and are fading into oblivion, for me the motto applies: When in trouble, go big! You have also absorbed what was once the professional division and you continue to present tired and worn-out concepts. RIP Panasonic

Latest rumors: two cameras and one is the S1IIE 😑 Introducing the Lumix S1II E – The E stands for everything you didn’t know you needed. Meet your new creative companion: The Eeprominator – Built-in memory so loyal, it holds onto your moments like your grandma holds onto your baby photos. E-Waste Not – Every shot counts. Even that accidental one of your foot? Frame it. Easter Snap – Hidden features? Secret settings? Surprises await in every menu. Emoticanon – Shoots in feels-per-second. Guaranteed to hit you right in the heartstrings. Exploitomatic – It finds the light. It finds the angle. It finds you. Lumix S1II E – Not just a camera. It’s a character

Does this mean that those specialist art films his wife made back in the old country will now have a 100% tariff ?

Cam Mackey hears your call to action and is now working on it.

The main camera manufacturing countries just got slapped by Tango-man. China - 34% Vietnam - 46% Taiwan - 32% Japan - 24% Thailand - 36% Hope all the ones who voted for this enjoy their new electronics prices 👍

I have a friend who still shoots GH5 professionally and his clients are happy. Really the GH5 represents insane value these days.

Got my S1RII and like I thought, I'm a bit disappointed. Stills are great with very good resolution, the Dpreview studio test is odd because the camera is very sharp even when using not so sharp lenses like the 28-200mm. But there are better cameras for photography, AF implementation is weird, AF-S is only DFD and the buffer is a joke when shooting high fps pictures. Video quality is the same than S5II, a bit less sharpening but still the same video engine, it still looks worse than the old gen, the resolution just feels not as good, no matter the mode or resolution used the image doesn't look really sharp in a good way, lines are not straight, some details are missing like if a filter or blur in some part of the image was added. The image looks like there is a slight oil painting touch softening the image at the core. Like on the S5II the rec 709 profiles are worse than V-log. So it is a bit ironic from Lumix to say "discover unseen details" for their S1RII tagline. Because of this the moire is not too much prononced. Some will like this tradeoff. I tested Prores Raw 6K Pixel to Pixel and the image is much better, the weird processing is gone. But I can't get the image right when using Premiere Pro, colors are off, I don't think Prores Raw is really fully supported by Premiere. The crop and the data size also makes this mode hard to use and it is not supported at all by Resolve. Using the Canon R5 or Z6III for raw is much easier as the files are better supported and there is no crop. The rolling shutter is just bad when using the DR boost, I didn't think I could see it but I can see jello even with relatively slow movements. In addition 24fps is the max fps we can use with DR boost and Open Gate. I can't select 30fps, maybe a bug. I think the best modes are 6k or 4k 60fps, there is only a slight crop, worse DR because no DR boost and the image quality becomes even slighltly worse but there is not a big difference with the 30fps and the rolling shutter is better. I quickly tested the 4k 120fps and as if it isn't enough that the 4k30fps was not great, the 120fps is even worse : blurry, bad details, just unusable. When selecting Pixel to Pixel, the quality is better but again these crop make these Pixel to Pixel modes hard to use and feel like we are using a S35 camera. Stabilization is the best in the market and for me it's the main reason I still use Panasonic (with Open Gate too). But the S5II is as good ... The S1RII feels like it was created for people taking mostly photography of still subjects. And for this the camera is good, not the best DR performance but nice colors and impressive 177MP handheld mode (the image makes a very long time to create though, much longer than on the S5II). For video it comes with marketing bait as 8k and 4k 120fps. The 8k like every other modes except raw is too much processed, it has high rolling shutter when the DR boost is enabled and the 4k120fps is not good at all. Yes we can do a lot of things with this camera but with big penalties most of the time. The added Prores Raw is questionable too, the files are not supported in Resolve and the crop is really disappointing. The fact remains, however, than the S1RII is the only affordable high resolution camera with acceptable autofocus for L mount. However, I don't see anything which could attract new users to Lumix or L mount, the S5II is a much better value for Youtube and other social media creators. And the A7RIV is much cheaper and has better AF for stills. 3600€ is a lot of money but I would have happily spend a bit more to get better video engine, better rolling shutter and 8k raw. As things stand at the moment with the current firmware, I think the right price should be more about 3200€. About the reviews available online like the one from Northrup, I think the best is to always wait for some Chinese or Korean reviews, they provides much more informations and are much more unbiased than any Northrup or Undone reviews. Here is an exemple of a good and accurate review :

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that you definitely won’t get either in that Blackmagic presentation 😀