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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

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.

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.

I would say that Z mount would be the way to go. It can adapt everything you’ve got in your lens collection to be near native. Not just your AF EF and F mount but with the TechArt you can have AF of all your manual lenses as well. If you can stretch to a used Z8 then that would close the argument on every aspect and would be a - if not THE -forever camera. I say this as someone who has still failed to buy one for the past three years despite it being THAT camera to me. But I’m going to London this weekend and you know what, I might well end up feeling saucy and doing a Wayne Campbell…

Yep that's the kind of intermediary codec that the ZR needs. But only if Nikon doesn't cook it with that aggressive noise reduction. You know the drill, Fuji had similar issues I seem to remember you pointing out. Thing is, I don't buy cameras based on promised or wishful features anymore. Been burned too many times waiting for "coming soon" updates that arrive late, incomplete, or not at all. So as of right now, the ZR is off the table for me. It's not just the codec situation though tbh, the unreliable view assist/exposure tools and first gen quirks also give me cold feet. Good to know LT is officially on the roadmap, though.. great for early adopters but I think I'm done gambling on "maybe later".

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 like this way of marketing to give the camera to youtubers with low number followers and turns out they're talented and need more recognition.

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.

Or is Mackey playing Depp playing Mackey...

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.

OK, decision made, flipping the S9 and an S5ii plus a lens, for a second S1RII, - it's worth it to me. 4 bodies down to 3 from what was 5 at the start of the year. 9 lenses down to 6, down to 5. I'm hoping to get that down to 3 at some point in the near future... 3 camera brands down to 1 (already happened)...but need more batteries because this S1RII is a power hog. I'm one of those that normally scoffs at folks reporting crap battery life and can normally exceed the official numbers by a factor of around 3, but with the S1RII, only by about 1.5. I now have 12 batteries and have 2 on charge at all times and as soon as Llano have the Lumix battery charger with built in power bank available, will have one of those in my bag. But the power issue aside, I think it's a bit of a no-brainer to me and really it comes down to one single factor more than anything, - e:shutter, - I hate it (for stills) and am going back to mech shutter only. The Sigma 28-45mm f1.8 is great by the way. Not quite as big or heavy as I expected, or at least no larger or heavier than expected, fast, very well built and no frikkin' extending zoom!! I'm just hoping they make a longer focal length version and then I really would be set for the remainder of my career.

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.

OK, I have a black one inbound and should be landing tomorrow or Thursday… I tried to get the LTD version but has to come from PannyBoy direct and they have zero stock, so black it is. My S9 is still not fixed and I have missed it on the first 3 jobs of the year and with 5 more imminent, can’t wait any longer. On the off chance my fixed S9 does turn up prior to these next 5 jobs I am away for, I’ll use both as a bit of a test but regardless, probably have a place more now for the L10 until an S9II comes along. My experience of not having a mech shutter has not been the greatest and the role either of these units is destined for is more photo, so…

I thought the title was slightly clickbaity but I’m glad I clicked on this one. There are a lot of “Arri look on your xyz camera” videos but I think this is a far more interesting take on it. The question is are you doomed to never match it because it is baked in (not least the IR cut filter) and it can’t be reverse engineered in post? Can anyone who has bought the Arri license for their supported Panasonic camera chime in with their thoughts?

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

Panasonic just released a new on-camera mic. Looks like an excellent option for events etc where you want something small or something really flexible. I've watched a few YT showcases and for me, the best features are: It gives you 32-bit without having to have the external mic preamp box (and then adding microphones to that, making it larger again) It's small, much smaller than an on-camera shotgun mic You can quickly swap between modes (I assume?) it's powered by the camera It unlocks the ability to record >2 channels of audio into the files (one person said you can record left/right/mono/mono-20dB as a combo, and left/right/left-20dB/right-20dB as a different combo) It's definitely not magic and the laws of physics still apply. There don't seem to be any really good on-location stress tests posted yet, but there's a few examples. Media Division did an in-kitchen test to compare it to in-camera mics and lav and a DJI clip-on, and also applied a bit of AI voice isolation too to see how far you can push it: Dustin did some good tests including walking a 360 around the camera in each mode, which showed how directional it is, which seems pretty impressive. He also compared it to the Sennheiser MKE440. This shows the different modes out in nature: This is probably a complete revolution for a number of niche uses. Content creators would be one, where they're recording in noisy environments but still staying relatively close to the camera where physics will be helping them. Another is where the flexibility really helps, like shooting events where getting pristine audio isn't an absolute must but working super-quickly is more important and perhaps the 32-bit would really come into its own. This reminds me of how people used to talk about Panasonic when the GH4 and GH5 were around and people were saying that Panasonic just listened to people and then implemented the features that people would use rather than trying to be flashy and grab headlines. This will be an invisible workhorse for lots and lots of people.

That's really unfortunate. His Vimeo is still up, and his Instagram too, though they haven't been updated recently. His content output decreased a lot once Gunpowder passed, but he had already been less active as I think he became more and more disillusioned with the entire YouTube/Filmmaking/Photography scene. I hope he is well and creating the art that he loves.

I have this camera since its release in late 2023. The G9II is lightweight, has better IBIS and video details rendering (in 5,7K/Open Gate only) than the S5II, S1II and S1RII (with non raw modes) and lenses like the small 20mm f1.7 II are really fun to use with this camera. I'm not tempted by the GH7 because the 5,7K/Open Gate mode of the G9II has very nice detail rendering, so I don't need the Prores Raw of the GH7. But to be honest, I think the best image out of the box comes from the GH6, colors are the best I've seen on a Panasonic camera. The GH6 with the 25-50mm is something else, even my S1RII doesn't look as good. For now the cameras I use the most are : The GH6 with the 25-50mm (insane rendering) and the 25mm f1.2 (pretty nice and soft look at f1.2 even if the colors are a bit muted). The G9II with the 20mm f1.7, the PL 12-60mm and 100-400mm. The S1II with the 35mm f1.2 DG II (only in Prores Raw). The S1RII with the 50mm and 24-70mm S Pro. The Z6III with the 50mm f1.2S/35mm f1.2S and sometimes the Batis 135mm f2.8 and 35mm GM (only in N-Raw).

Incidentally, FujiFilm have announced a new instax camera today that is already boiling the piss of many people in the same way as the X-Half does. It’s basically a video focused version of the Instax Evo but retains the printer and is based on their Fujica cine cameras of the past. The dial on the side let’s you choose the era of look that you want to emulate. So it shoots video which transfers to the app and then it prints a key frame still from it complete with a QR code on it that people can then scan to download the video from the cloud. It looks beautiful and based on my experience with the X-Half, if they made this with that larger format sensor (sans printer obviously) then I would be all over it for all the same reasons as I love the X-Half.

I don't really know what to say.... The post I was replying to said they hadn't seen 9:16 displays in public so I shared some images. The fact you haven't experienced the need to deliver 4K 9:16 videos doesn't mean other people haven't. Why is everyone so interested in being an expert about what people they've never met are required to deliver for companies they've never heard of in other countries they've never visited?

They're everywhere, and are often just normal TVs rotated 90 degrees In shopping malls Some are pretty big Some are pretty tall too, presumably for narrower spaces Outdoors Bus stops In shop windows etc.

Don't forget that there is a silent army of people who are making work for clients. I am in a number of private groups with professionals (shooting corporate, advertising/PR, etc) and things like open gate are absolutely critical for those amongst them doing commercial work. I thought that Cams video on open gate was actually really good and explained it well. Basically every camera argument is people saying "I definitely need the things I use, and no-one needs the things I don't use".

Finally someone has done it https://www.benro.com/en/prelaunch/NE1-nd-filter.html It has a nifty bluetooth controller with auto-AE as well. Curious to see how nice it is to use, but no word on pricing yet.

It worths mentioning G9II, a sort of GH7 in a S5 body.

GH5 GH4 EM10iii OM-1 5Dii XPRO2 XT-5 P1100 DSC-RX10 iPhone15 iPhone12 Xiaomi12 Ultra DJI Mavic Pro GoPro Hero All those different cameras were used to make our latest indy documentary on-and-off over the last 3 years. We finally finished post-production (for real this time) last month. Not to mention all the different ridiculous vintage lenses and modern lenses employed along the way. So that happened. My advice? Yeah, don't use so many cameras...and then try to make all that cohere somehow with no legitimate color grading skills... Surprisingly, I found the EM10iii footage the most pleasant looking color-wise when exposed correctly.

One of the best channels on YouTube in this industry. Thorough, no hype and do actually make quality productions out in the field and not simply spout BS from behind a desk, holding a lav mic wearing clothing back to front.

Suddenly Gerald finds no problem in DR and 10 stops is good enough to declare "cameras peaked".

I thought I would add my project to this thread as I was somewhat inspired by it. Long story short, I modded my BMPCC to turn it into a D-mount camera.

So you feel it in your bones that something is wrong with society and that corporations are doing a lot of harm, turning the frogs gay and so on. What was it specifically about the aquarium exactly that triggered these feelings? The science of fish? Some naughty toads? A pink goldfish? The financial institutions, like it or not, along with food and oil, are needed for civilisation. I'm not saying they can't or shouldn't be reformed, and refocused so the interests of the people are put first ahead of offshore tax dodging profit-making. It is true that neo liberalism and big business has failed to make society or communities better, it has failed us and the environment, they are parasitical and we really need someone to turn to in these dark times who can do something about it. I am just confused as to why that hero has to be a pedophile rapist with criminal convictions and fraudulent businesses, a fascist and a racist, old as hell, fat and stupid, born into privilege, a cold heartless landlord and a cultural wasteland of a person who likes to fawn over supermodels and traffic women. No names of course. A clue... it's not Bill Gates or the boss of Pepsi. Ah yes the NGOs and USAID are at the root of all evil aren't they wanting to end world hunger. Ah yes Russia that hero state where the quality of life for most people barely rises above the grade of heavy depression and alcoholism, and for good reasons. A shit economy, stripped of its dignity by a mafia state, which likes to routinely arrest and murder it's own citizens, and one that likes to spend countless billions on a hybrid war with Europe and the UK rather than spending it on fucking hospitals. You really believe he's moving away from the imperialist clutches of wall street? What are the actual things which have occurred to suggest wall street is weaker under Trump? He's had 4 years 2016-2020 in power and now again embarking on another term and as far as I can see the stock market has never been more of a bubble, more damaging and more highly inflated and inequality of wealth never worse especially in the US. And this is not me spouting an opinion, there's factual evidence for it, not that you'd trust any of the journalists who'd trojan the inconvenient truth into your pathetic little fantasy land.

1) This didn't go well for Sony when they released the QX100 and QX10 years ago. It also didn't work well for Olympus with the Air A01. Of course, none of them stuck a stupid bullshit "AI" label on the end of the camera name so who knows, maybe that's what was missing. 2) Fuck GenAI. Of all the things I want integrated in my camera, that's at about the rock bottom of the list. 3) Note that at least 3 of the 6 testimonials that they include (screenshot below) don't actually say anything positive about the camera. "That's very different" is not an endorsement. In fact, where I live, saying "that's different" is usually a form of backhanded insult. 4) It looks like it only supports wifi connection to the phone without a wired option. In a best-case scenario, screen lag will be tolerable. Go to any reasonably-crowded urban area, though, and enjoy the slide show and/or "connection lost" messages. 5) Even though they say you can choose from over 100 M43 lenses, I'd be worried about magsafe supporting any moderately heavy lens. Even if it does, the camera will be really unbalanced. 6) When Caira goes out of business, there will be nobody left to update the app and the camera isn't usable without it. Cross your fingers that Apple doesn't change some necessary API during an OS update. 7) Super early bird pricing is $695. You can go buy a used Panasonic G85 in like new condition for about $430. You can get an OM System OM-5 in like new condition for about $760 or in excellent condition for about $690. The G85 is cheaper and pretty good - at least on a spec sheet, they seem similar - a little bulkier, maybe. The OM-5 should be at least as good of a camera, also is quite small (not as small, of course, but very small by modern camera standards), and will keep working whether or not OM Systems stays in business or decides they want to stop making cameras. 8 ) Phone cameras are already very good these days. Mine is more than good enough for any of the sort of images/videos that they seem to be promoting on their site. If not, I'd probably just get a newer/better phone and not some janky add-on. 🙂 9) Small company + Kickstarter means you'll probably be waiting a good long time and/or never actually receive the order. Even though they say they have 500 mainboards already in stock, actually building and shipping hundreds of units is a really hard challenge that a lot of kickstarter projects don't take into account - and sometimes not even due to fault of the creators. My 4x10 film camera that I ordered from an established brand (Ondu) who already made/shipped lots of pinhole cameras for years beforehand took WAY longer than expected, at least partly because suppliers kept sending out-of-spec parts to them. The owner is a really great guy and we had some nice conversations when I asked my camera hadn't come despite that he said they were caught up on orders (turned out that their tool to collect shipping information lost a bunch of responses so he had to go manually collect them from a lot of people). So anyway - for me, Caira is a hard no. I'm basically the opposite of their target market, though.

I have been a pro photographer for 20 years now and live in a tropical island with lighting ratios you can't even imagine in most countries. This is why I have been always very sensible to Dynamic range result/progress/testing for the last two decades, as most of the population including me are darker skin and we have very hard light. During that time I saw the first digital cameras (I would say from 2 to 3rd generation) depending on how you count, go from about 10 to 14-15 (SNR) DR test in RAW, as contrary to most videographers, photographers been shooting in raw for decades. I have seen what a 10 stops DR camera image look like and my ZR is no way as bad as this. Last week I had to film some B rolls for the launching of an international car brand here, where we had to mix some of our country shots with their own media. And as I had little time, I had to go around and shoot in less ideal conditions with harsh middle day shoot and some with harsh backlight and I had to dig deep into the shadows. This is start of the summer in the southern hemisphere, so the light was already hard even not quite as from December to March. So to come back to CineD, I have enough experience to know their numbers/conclusion are just BS. In fact they are some of the reference that have educated me, mostly with the latitude test, which I consider the best test today. But when you take RAW numbers and pit it against mostly compress/NR based codec, guess what, it is disingenuous. Because if you had watched DR test for the last decade with Xyla charts and Imatest, you would know that Raw data tend to score much less because of noise, but in that noise is still a ton of Data. Gerald Undone who is himself not a Nikon Fan, does the explanation very well in the ZR dynamic range test. First he got 10.9 stops at 0.5 medium noise rating, which strangely jumps just a little bit to 11.1 on a normalized 4k timeline, and just adding a little NR, where as he says the details in the shadows are still very high he reaches 12.6. This is in the RED Komodo X range. I have seen other test from french (I am a french Speaker) to even Korean which were around same numbers and which corelate with multiple side by side test. And no way their are 2.5 stops difference between the KX and the ZR!!! But it is not the first time I see them cooking their numbers to support some kind of narative. But this time it was the exact opposite for the Sony A9iii. The one with the Global shutter that even with your eyes could see with a bad DR, but I remenber the guy putting so much NR to get 9STOPS of exposure latitude, to say it had great latitude. Yes it is a 1080p image, but doesn't mean it has 1080p details, which I pointed in the comments.

The best test so far

Casey Neistat and Candice? Matt Granger and his 200/2 Nikkor? DSLR video shooter and his entire camera studio attached to a rolling lightstand? Gerald Undone and his own ego (or Sony?)? Bloomie and his cats? The Camera Conspiracies guy and his most 3d popping lens? Snapchick and Raymond? Cam Mackey and yellow-toned footage of cars driving around in the sand? Pooter McCubbins and ugly poorly-made leather goods? Potato Jet and his FPV drone? Matti H and Pooter McCubbins' leftover views? Mathieu Stern and other peoples' lens adapter ideas? FroKnowsPhoto and his Canon rep?

@Tulpa If you are buying from scratch and don't have a lot of lenses etc in a particular format that you want/need to use then I'd be looking at this camera too. It is smaller and lighter than even the very compact GX-80/85. Compared to the bigger MFT offerings in the G and GH series then it is even more of a stark difference in form factor but it is also dramatically cheaper. Video specs, it shoots 4:2:2 10-Bit and has the open gate mode which for this sort of expedition might well be beneficial to you as you can more easily reformat the footage in different aspect ratios for social media etc. It has the colour profiles for ease of use but it also shoots in both flavours of F-Log so you can roll your own look. Lens wise, it has not only got a huge back catalogue of native lenses (a lot of which have stabilisation) and are plentiful on the used market but it also has a lot of fast compact 3rd party lenses like Viltrox which are available at the sort of prices we all remember MFT lenses being back in the day ! Obviously, it has the larger sensor too.... The "downsides" would be considered to be the lack of IBIS and having what appears to be a vague degree of weather resistance - I couldn't find any definitive answers on that one. The lack of IBIS may well actually prove to be a blessing in disguise if the camera is going to spend any amount of time on the handlebars while you traverse over what for large chunks of the journey will be less than smooth surfaces. Wear and tear over three years will be bad enough without throwing the fragile mechanisms into the mix. There is a reason why shows such as Top Gear went with the IBIS-less GH5s (although I'm not sure if the story of show wanting to use the GH5 minus it was actually the trigger for Panasonic to make that version is apocryphal or not). Whatever way you go, I'd spend some research time on the best shock mounting options as it will be a point of failure for any camera that you go with over that period of time. As for the weather sealing... Back in the dark distant past when I was a professional sports photographer using battleships like the D3/D4/D5 etc they could take a hammering but as soon as the rain/sleet/snow became a bit too much none of us were taking that chance that they were immune to it so out would come the covers for both the bodies and the lenses. Think Tank make good ones but they are all designed for bigger cameras rather than the X-M5 so on a more prosaic level, these are cheap and cheerful at less than £11 for a pack of four and won't take up much space. On a trip like this when you are likely going to encounter very real weather, I wouldn't take any chances with the weather sealing rating vague or otherwise of smaller cameras.

Hi everyone, here comes a new music video shot on insta360 v4. Somehow the process is really fun becuse after shooting you get to animate all the camera settings in the insta 360 app. That ist actually quite fun, feels a bit like old analog photography as you find new aspects that you did not see during the shoot. Nevertheless the process is not too good yet as you have to animate the camera settings in the app, then export it and then edit it in Resolve. Pretty time consuming! So i hope there will be a resolve plugin in some time in the future... If you have any experiences using this technique i would ne happy if you could share it here!

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

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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 !