ntblowz

Never thought I would buy a X100VI (and a limited edition too!), But after my name got drawn out of the lottery I say why not!
The thickness of the X100 is similar to my Sony body without any lens on it, and even with that OVF it is only slightly taller but shorter than most other mirrrorless with dslr design.
The ND and IBIS does it make a more compelling video camera, I really hate to screw on and off the lens filter on trip.
Btw it can be powered by USB powerbank
 
 

I really welcome a Red Powered Nikon FX3/FX30 competitor with Redcode, I would chuck out my FX3/FX30 in a beat!

Now nikon gets to be the patent troll. Red will probably get to pretend to remain a company for 2 years and then nikon will probably fire the entire workforce, and we get to hear about “the constantly changing landscape of media” in some press release justifying the gutting of the company.

Nikon Z9 Mark II with REDCODE
RED Komodo Z - with Nikon Z mount
Nikon refusing to renew patent / tech transfer for compressed Canon-RAW!
This is a big move on Canon, against Canon.
Fascinating.
Just don't mention a certain yellow jersey cyclist.

Perverse. AI images over deliver in this situation.  
 
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/willy-wonka-event-uk-chocolate-experience-meth-lab-1235837133/?fbclid=IwAR1S4lRs2eTLuenEEGro-pOVC1BNUteDcNJ_AQYMinJmgFe1GCRU49eNALI_aem_ASDqmkSsZecQEbJvnJb6b7eJ9ftjr6U3ZFS23kqlN2eNEXUKvv9sfDvgFIOAkrHGi74

Maybe not....

 

Just a 3d render and a guy with nervous hands. Fake vertigo inluded.😂

I’m working on a new reel and website. I had a weird year.
Jan 23: got fired from my full time job
feb - sept 23: got fairly depressed due to being rejected after around 350 job applications.
at the same time i tried out freelancing while searching for a new job, done a little decently paid corporate work, a lot of barely paid and unpaid work as a dp, gaffer or colorist on short films and music videos.
oct - dec 23: got lucky due to a cinematography bootcamp i followed and ended up working as a DIT on a feature.
income wise it ended up being almost the same as 2022, so hopefully the freelancing thing will pick up more steam. I’m going to try making some spec ads with some directors i know this year, so we could get work that way.
 
 

Compact travel definitely rx100vii or vi hands down, 2 of my friends went to compact big zoom DC for travel and leave their mirrorlees behind at home. One guy sold his Tamron 28-200mm too cause even that is big for him.
 
For me I probably get osmo pocket 3 for my compact travel gimbal camera.. can't assed bring an actual gimbal.

Thanks largely to Andrew's original post, many people here already know that Shane Carruth shot 2013's excellent indie feature Upstream Color with a pair of hacked GH2s. At the time, aspiring filmmakers everywhere found inspiration that such a masterful film was created with such an accessible consumer camera. It still stands up today as a beautiful, challenging, thought-provoking film:
I just happened across some behind the scenes photos on Reddit posted almost a decade after the film's release. I've always wondered about the technical particulars of how this film was made and even though what was posted is pretty low-res and deteriorated further with early Instagram filters, it does show some pretty bare-bones camera rigs and a lot of natural light.
As I enter my forties and the dream of creating a meaningful narrative film in my lifetime seems to slip further and further out of reach, this is just the kind of inspirational kick in the pants that I needed. If 8-bit, 4:2:0 AVCHD from a Micro Four Thirds sensor was enough to create an immersive story like this in 2013, then the never-ending pursuit of marginally improved gear and software really is just a giant, capitalism-fueled distraction -- one that I know that I use to put off the very real possibility that when I buckle down to make something deeply personal, I might not have anything to say. But I also know that it will be my deepest regret if I never even try.
If there's one thing I've learned, it's that my own thoughts and ideas aren't particularly novel or unique, so maybe others on this board will connect with this too.

The only thing I don't like is they use NZ flag 😂

Pretty much the same for me except I went Sony for full video and Canon for hybrid/stills work after being just Canon since Covid.
Atm it's ZV-E1/FX30 for pure video work, Canon R8/R7 for hybrid/photog or if shooting with Canon shooter.
2023 is an interesting year for me, got layed off in the beginning and decide to do just freelance, went to travel for 4 months this year which is the most I have done in my whole life.
I also started doing some photog work and man not have to carry that much gear is nice for a change lol.
Mavic Air (the OG) is my longest surviving gear so far, client still happy with it and I don't do much drones nowaday so I don't think I will upgrade until it exploded or something.
This year I might get the Osmo pocket 3 after renting it out for an event where I m mostly doing photo and some video. I was quite impressed with the result as I can't be assed to put my cam on the gimbal.
And I bought M1 max Mac Studio during boxing day clearance recently, the general speed and export speed increase by many folds vs my og MBA m1 with 7 core gpu and 8gig of ram. Now my MBA can enjoy some semi-retirement time lol, when I told ppl I been editing multicam 4k on this little machine ppl were quite skeptical.
 

Good idea to reflect on the year!
My highlights of the year:
Bought a Thunderbolt hub and radically changed my home setup
I use my MBP laptop for everything, and now have the following setup.  When I dock it at home I plug in a USB-C hub which connects it to power, my speaker system, the Resolve dongle, and a few peripherals.  When I want to use it "normally" I plug in a Thunderbolt-to-mini-DisplayPort cable that goes to my UHD panel, and the MBP switches to using the UHD panel as the main UI.  I can run Resolve in this mode, but it's not the best setup.  If I want to run Resolve properly I remove the cable for the display and plug in my new Thunderbolt hub.  The TB hub then connects a second 1080p panel I have on my right as the UI and connects the BM UltraStudio Monitor 3G, which is connected to the HDMI input of my UHD panel.  When I run Resolve in this setup the UI is to my left, and the UHD panel will be a pure monitor feed set to the correct resolution and frame rate (up to 1080p, which is my timeline resolution).
  My big purchase was that I did a course on using alternative colour spaces in Resolve with Hector Berrebi
It was pretty niche, but really solidified a bunch of concepts that I'd seen in passing or had some familiarity with.
There's another course from him coming up in Feb to do with skintones and beauty grading and retouching that I'm really curious about.
  I bought zero cameras and zero lenses
  I did two post-pandemic trips, one to Melbourne and the other to South Korea
The best investment in my film-making is putting interesting things in front of the camera, and this was definitely that.
  Discovered how to grade iPhone and GX85 footage to match with GH5
In preparation for the Melbourne trip I did a comparison between the iPhone, GX85 and GH5.  It was mostly to rule out the iPhone as a serious camera option.  I proved myself wrong and discovered the iPhone is actually incredibly good and useful in post.  I worked out a power grade to convert it to Davinci Intermediate and was able to colour grade it just as easily as LOG or RAW.
I also discovered that the GX85 is practically as malleable as the GH5 when it comes to small adjustments.  
  Really nailed down my understanding of Colour Management in Resolve
This is what enabled me to grade the iPhone and GX85 so well.  If you're not using Colour Management then you're basically fumbling around in the dark with boxing gloves on, you've got no hope of doing anything except accidentally discovering a few tricks that seem to work.  
  Discovered I prefer the GX85 over the GH5
The GX85 suits my shooting more than the GH5 because it's smaller, the tilt screen is so much faster/easier to use in busy public places than the flippy screen, and now that I can grade the files just as easily the image is just as good unless I hit the limits of the image (e.g. DR)
  Switched from MF primes to an AF zoom
This was a revolution.  I used to shoot with fast manual primes, but in Korea I discovered that the 14mm F2.5 was fast enough for having a natural amount of DoF and had good low-light, and the speed of the AF-S was a real upgrade to my shooting.  I have since switched to the 12-35/2.8 and will see how that goes on future trips.
  Learned a bunch of things about editing
I have a huge backlog of previous trips that I haven't edited yet.  In fact, the small percentage that have a "final" video edit, I am still quite unhappy with.  Overall I have felt like I didn't know what I was doing in the editing, or the colour grade.  This feeling isn't completely gone, but I have had a number of realisations about various editing challenges and I feel like I'm almost knowledgeable enough to edit something in a passable way. If I had to sum up, I feel like I'm almost good enough at editing and colour grading to understand what I'm doing in post, and I almost understand enough about post to know what equipment I need in prod.

Happy New Year, dear friends! My year was ambivalent and full of lessons. Film bizz in Germany is very rough and ungrateful if you are trying to enter the field of large narrative projects. I had an accident, a branch falling on my head. They immediately looked for a substitute for the rest of the whole gig and they still have not paid me yet due to some mushy accounting routines. Canceled jobs due to reasons intransparent to me. Got taken advantage by an upcoming director, working for free in advance of a contract. 😂 But I am happy about the things I learned and my passion for video and film is bigger than ever.

There were a lot of ups and downs.
I launched my own pro-wrestling company in May. It has been very successful so far.
I've continued my freelance video work and it has gone well.
I'm pretty content where I'm at gear wise. I'll probably upgrade my B and C cams to S5IIs but overall I'm quite happy with the L-mount and feel pretty good about its future.
I was diagnosed with kidney cancer. Had my right kidney removed. No more cancer. If my scans look good in April I'll be officially considered cured. 
Flooding ravaged my community twice. It is still recovering.
So 2023 brought some real big highs and some real low lows. If it weren't for the election I'd almost be looking forward to 2024!
Happy New Year to all of you!

It went OK…
I ended up doing 21 jobs instead of the previous years 33, but the 2022 year workload was insane and a necessity after 2 terrible Covid ‘work’ years (ha, 6 jobs in 2 years).
2024 I have revised it down slightly even further to 15-20 and I already have 4 jobs locked in for 2025.
Volume-wise, I have no concerns.
Client-wise, as in the type, ditto. I have always been quite picky because otherwise…
Kit-wise, struggled again all year long. As a solo, multi-day, hybrid destination wedding shooter, I have some very specific needs.
It’s been an evolving process over many years based on the available tech each year combined with my ever-evolving approach and needs.
By the close of my 2023 season, I finally cracked it regarding kit with the final conclusion that a 2, 3 or 4 body kit could work equally as well, but glass was the key.
L Mount does not give me it so it has been a case of either ditch it totally, or split my photo and video needs into 2 different systems.
For 2024, I decided to do just that and then we will see how that goes.
My ‘perfect’ set up is with Canon, based around a pair of R3’s, IMO, the ultimate current hybrid body, but I can’t afford so…
L Mount for video and Nikon/adapted Tamron for stills:
Static video = S1H + battery grip + 70-200mm f4
Roaming video = S5ii + Sigma 28-70mm f2.8
Candid photo = Nikon Zf + 40mm f2
All other photo = Nikon ‘X’ + Tamron 20-40mm f2.8 plus Tamron 70-180mm f2.8
The ‘X’ being either; Z8, Z9, new Z6iii if it is available in time, or even another Zf. 
Other than that final piece of kit, I’m sorted and happy with all my set up, cameras, lenses, lights, audio etc and I’m well set up also with my motorhome/RV as a home away from home and mobile office.
Bring it on ‘24!
 

2024 is upon us and I have decided to look back before looking forward. How did everyone else's year turn out?
 
Work
2023 has been the busiest year I have ever had, I have shot an even wider variety of events than before as well as small projects such as photoshoots, social media content for clients, etc. This year even logging into this site was a luxury I rarely had. Next year looks like it will be the same as I continue to build a repeat client base across a wider spectrum of project types.
Gear
Each year my goal is to buy nothing and of course it did not work out that way for me. My biggest purchase this year was to build a new editing workstation. I was having real problems editing the H.265 10bit 422 footage that the R7 and R5 produce and time is money as they say; with so many jobs my workstation became the limiting factor. I ended up building a custom workstation with a Core i9 CPU, 24 cores, 128GB of memory, NVME drives, and RTX 4080 GPU. Most importantly I made sure that the CPU I selected supported QuickSync which can hardware accelerate H.265 10bit 422 footage. This setup with Davinci Resolve finally fixed my Fusion and footage lags once and for all.
I also now have access to AV1 with the new CPU which produces almost lossless footage quality. I thought it was going to be a great new codec to use; until I found out Vimeo does not support it even though they say they do (my first AV1 upload to Vimeo stuttered horribly and was unwatchable), and on YouTube the user has to specifically enable it in their profile to enable AV1 playback. I will still probably always upload to my personal YT channel using AV1 but for clients I will need to stick with H.265 or H.264.
As many of you already know, my setup is now 100% Canon; R7 (Photo/Video), R5 (Photos), C70(Video) and I use them in that order from a frequency standpoint. The R7 has exceeded my expectations in every way (battery life, Image Quality, reliability, photos, video, rigging options). The R5 is a bit of a disappointment, 95% photos, sometimes a B cam for the R7, or a C cam for the R7 and C70. I probably would be better off with two R7's and the C70 but it is too late now.
C70 
The C70 is great when locked down on a tripod and especially for long form with XLR audio as an A cam. I am far from a pixel peeper, but for me when looking at the footage after a shoot, its always a bit of a disappointment. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it always seems flatter and duller than the R7 or R5 even though they are all set to CLOG3.  I personally think it is a combination of the Canon speedbooster and the Canon EF 24-105 F4 lens that lives on it as well as the fact that I have little or no control over the lighting for most of the events that I shoot. The 24-105mm is underwhelming in all areas, but I just can't seem to find a better lens for the C70; something like the Tamron 35-150mm F2-2.8 I think would be a better lens for the C70 but that's not an option in EF mount.
I think the 24-105mm combined with the speedbooster does something to the contrast and saturation that is hard to recover in post. Also, the slightest bit of direct light and the image washes out very quickly due to the speedbooster; and when I say direct light I don't mean direct sunlight, I'm talking even shooting concerts and music videos the image washes out terribly from DJ or music video lights. Needless to say, my setup is not doing the C70 any favors, but as a OMB my setup times are already long as it is. I am thinking about switching to a native RF lens for the C70 but that would be an expensive endeavor. The Canon RF 24-105mm F2.8 is $3K....insanity, it would probably greatly improve the C70's IQ but do nothing for its reach.
R5
The 30min recording limit pretty much kills it for anything long form which eliminates it as ever being an A cam even if overheating weren't a concern (which it still is to me). I do shoot b roll clips in a pinch with it or go with the C70 and R7 locked down and shoot the R5 handheld but its rare that I need all 3. The EVF has so much latency that I still miss my 5D4 for photography action shots. Other than the EVF lag, it is great for photography.
R7
I've said enough praises about it, but I do find myself thinking a lot about FF equivalency these days when picking up the R7 (more on that in a moment). To my eyes; the IQ out of the R7 and R5 are identical until the R5's second native ISO kicks in, but if the ISO needs to be that high I am in trouble anyway. These days I use an F7 panel light and pretty much never have to go above ISO800 with the R7 combined with the Sigma 18-35 F1.8 EF-S lens.
Stability
I shoot almost exclusively handheld now. Many projects I don't even bring the gimbal and the few times that I do, I hate everything about it and either don't use it or only use it for one or two shots (long form speedramps mostly). The R7's IS is great, and I no longer try to emulate fancy YT camera movements, I let the action do the moving and just slightly follow it with the camera work. For very short walks (backwards or forwards) I am stable enough combined with IS and sometimes DR warp stabilization that I can pull it off, but needing to walk really isn't as common as you would think for the projects that I shoot.
vND Meike Adapter
My favorite accessory of all time for the R7 and pretty much any camera I have ever owned has become the vND Meike adapter. No more fiddling with lens ND filters, it is nothing short of amazing. It does add a slight green cast to the footage but it is an even cast, no dreaded X pattern or variable cast. In post I just add 20 to the magenta slider in Davinci Resolve and its fixed. Sometimes the green is complimentary, and IMO gives it a higher end look so depending on the situation I will leave it. 
My only complaint with the filter is it does not go to zero stops of ND so if you are running back and forth from inside to outside for an event you have to accommodate the 2 stops when you are indoors by raising the ISO. It is also very easy to bump the little wheel and there are no numbers or steps on it to set it precisely to where it was before.
FF Equivalency
Over the course of this past year I have spent more time than I would like thinking about FF equivalency but not in the way most people do. I personally think the FF "look" is a myth, I have no clue when looking at a shot if it was a FF sensor or not.
When I personally think about FF equivalency it is from a lighting perspective. Before arriving at a new venue for a project I always worry that there won't be enough light available and all of my F2.8 FF lenses are no longer F2.8 on the R7 and the Sigma 18-35 F1.8 usually isn't long enough for back of the room type of long form content (dance recitals, corporate events, holiday shows, etc.) so I usually use the RF 70-200mm F2.8 on the R7 for B cam work. The R7 also does not have a second native ISO so it gets noisy pretty quickly after 1600ISO.
Those situations and the fact that 60FPS is line skipped (in both the R7 and the R5) sometimes makes me wonder if the R6 II would be as good of a fit for me as the R7. So far the R7 has delivered on every project and my concerns about lighting were overblown, but I feel like its the one thing that adds stress to my day when arriving at a new venue for a new project where I have no control over the lighting.
2024 Demo Reel
I also created a new Demo Reel for 2024. This was shot across many years, projects, and camera eco systems. No matter how busy you are, you still need to keep those new customers coming in so I decided to start off the year with a demo reel.
Below are all of the cameras that I think I used for the footage in this video. I also uploaded this video using AV1 to YT.
Cameras - Canon R7, R5, C70, S5, GH5, C200, R6, GoPro 8
Drones: DJI P4, Mavic Pro, Autel EVO II
 
 
 

My son is 15 and plays a ton of video games. We watched "Gemini Man" a year or so ago on 4K UHD disc at both 60p and 24p. He thought the 60p looked like a video game, not a movie, and preferred the 24p version. I doubt he's the only young person who feels this way. My point is that saying 24p is for older folks because they are used to it is too simplistic an argument and simply not correct. 

I ‘traded’ (off-loaded to the wife) my M1 14” at the beginning of this year for an M2 Max with 64GB ram 16” because the old one was barely faster than my 7 year old gaming desktop PC.
A good test was batch editing a typical wedding of say 700 raw files through DXO PureRaw tidying up noise and detail.
Overnight on my PC, around 8-10 hours?
Same thing failed every time I tried it on the M1 chip MacBook.
With this year’s M2, 40 minutes maybe?
It has transformed my workflow and as someone who spends a lot of time working away from home Apr-Sep, it’s been brilliant.
I use it with 3 external SSD.
One for photo, one for video, one (armoured) backup for both.
My only wishes were it was slightly less laggy for video editing because yup, there is some (but that may be me not having it set up right?) and I wish the screen was bigger than 16”, but as an all in one, photo and editing machine, at home at the dining room table, or in the office or in the motorhome, it’s a great/essential tool for sure.

I'm not into conspiracy theories anymore really (for which I blame the chemtrails and 5G masts activating the molecular mind control devices implanted in my brain by Bill Gates through the COVID vaccine) but if I were then I'd consider whether there was any external influence to this.
The Hong Kong of today is very much not the same carefree Hong Kong that is depicted in those videos so, whilst to its viewers these videos act as a time capsule of more innocent times of photography gear "reviews", there will be others viewing it as a time capsule of a far more liberal time that they would rather suppress.
Of course, the videos are also a body of work for one of the presenters who fled Hong Kong for political reasons as he discusses here.
The broader issue highlighted by these videos being removed from YouTube, in common with content on other streaming services, is that if you value a piece of work then get a physical copy of it.
With that, I'm off to download and burn a DVD compilation of Max Yuryev's weightlifting style auto focus tests.

Funnily enough, I was mocked on here not so long ago for suggesting any of that trivial shit was required so I was keeping it simple.
Not to mention being in keeping with the other thread on here about making a "real" movie with a cheap camera.

 

And budget for several lighting trucks. 
And budget for a six figure sound package. 
And budget for all the crew, and actors. And feeding them. 
And budget for all the locations. 
  
Yiiiikes, that doco starts out harsh
"There is no reason this shot ever has a boom shadow", the director shouts while pointing an angry finger at the Boom Op. 
Poor guy

You can get the Sigma 40mm f1.4 ART in L mount but in terms of it being a pancake…
well it is if you like your pancakes in this sort of quantity.

I have been spending too much money on equipment in recent years, and WAY too much time researching it. I really don't need anything else in terms of kit. What I do need is to replace my wardrobe and make some repairs to my home and my vehicle. Also, I'd like to spend more time producing passion projects.

So, I'm making a commitment that I will not buy any new gear between November 30th, 2023 and November 29th, 2024 (got to give myself the option to take advantage of Black Friday deals). If I need a specialty piece of gear, I will rent it.

The exceptions are expendables and direct replacements, should anything I'm using break down.

I've never done this before and I'm posting this to help keep myself accountable.