Oedipax

The DVX100 is a classic. It's only a 1/3" sensor, but I could easily get shallow depth of field with it (NDs + Wide open aperture) just don't expect 5D SDOF since most (all) handycams/camcorders had tiny sensors. Here's a teaser to my feature film shot with the DVX (just showing this one because it has some shallow DOF shots):
 

With regard to audio, I think the innovation has largely come from the music side of the fence rather than the broadcast/film side to be honest.
From that point of view, there have been numerous 5DMKii moments.
The Portastudio was one, the LinnDrum was another, the Akai S900 sampler, the Atari ST with Cubase, the ADAT digital multitrack, the Yamaha 02R mixing console and of course SoundTools as it was and ProTools as it became.
Arguably, these were all much bigger game changers than the 5DMKii, particularly the latter ones as they changed the entire industry at the high end as well as the low.
The 5DMKii let you make images that looked somewhat  like the movie studios could do, the audio products didn’t just allow you to produce audio that sounded like a real recording studio did but actually became the real recording studios.
The nature of broadcast and film is intrinsically more conservative.
I’ve been involved in product development for one company where it seemed inconceivable why the BBC, for example, would spend five times more for something that did less and then for another company where it seemed inconceivable to me why they would spend five times more on what we were proposing to them than they could on something similar they could get from a music store.
Some days you’re the statue, some days you’re the pigeon !
The problem with audio developments for music is that it plateaued and then became a race to the bottom price wise from which it will never return. It means that the innovation is now in the cost reduction and arguably why not because there really isn’t many more places for it to go in terms of functionality or quality. Which is good for us!
As all of this rapid development was going on in music technology, say between 1982-2000, it was like the wild west at times with companies coming from nowhere with bombshell products that either drove their competitors out of business or drove them on to greater heights.
And the vast majority of these companies were small ones (generally created by musicians who had to invent what it was the market didn’t have for them to buy), which made them lean and agile.
Over time though, the eating each other’s lunch routines often combined with little, no or reckless business practices (and ESPECIALLY poor cash flow from over ambitious product developments) left them vulnerable to being put out of business or, more usually, being bought out by the major manufacturers who were predominantly large Japanese companies. The likes of Oberheim (Yamaha), Linn (Akai), PPG (Korg) and Sequential Circuits (Yamaha again) all went that way and the innovation generally went no further for them once they were under the wing of those bigger manufacturers.  Eventually freed from their ‘consultancy’ deals, most have resurfaced as boutique operations serving an ever more niche market.
If I look at someone like Fairlight and my relationship with them as an example of what happened to an innovative company, its quite informative. I went from being an awestruck kid when they brought the CMI out, to then working for a manufacturer who basically drove them out of the sampler business they’d created, to eventually working on OEM development with them when they transitioned to broadcast. In the subsequent 20 years they’ve changed hands countless times and are now just a tab on a piece of free(ish) software. Its hard to grasp such a transition for me but for anyone who’s too young to know what the CMI was, its the equivalent of RED’s RAW pipeline ending up as a free download in the Sony PlayMemories store for your RX100.
Lexicon are exactly the same. From making jaw dropping almost other worldly products to being gobbled up by a company that was making most of its money off providing car stereos for GM etc and Lexicon was reduced over time to being included in every low end mixing console and software bundle that it could be licensed to. The company that bought them has done the same to every company its bought and I can’t even dignify them by mentioning their name even 20 years after them destroying the company I worked for !
So there’s just no incentive there for anyone to be innovative in music audio anymore as its littered with similar stories and the ones left standing wouldn’t see the amount of volume in broadcast/film that they need to press the button on the mass production runs they now need due to how cheap everything has to be now.
The company that COULD do it are the much maligned Behringer. 
If you look at something like the X Air XR12 digital mixing console and see what they can knock out for £239 retail (inc VAT!!) then it doesn’t take a genius to see what they could do against Sound Devices if they had the inclination but there just isn’t the market there. Because, believe me, they wouldn’t have blinked if there was.
So, unfortunately, I don’t think we’re going to get that 5DMarkii moment and the innovation such as it is will come from individuals themselves looking at products from the music side of the fence and modifying it themselves. Like getting that X Air XR12 and powering it from Sony NP batteries to make an extremely capable digital field mixer and recorder for £269 (including the £30 for the bits to do it) or being a smartarse and using cheap midi controllers to create remote focus and control systems for Panasonic cameras for under £75  (ahem!).
Because music audio had its numerous 5DMKii moments a few years ago there is a backlog of a ton of cheap stuff that flies under the radar for film makers that is waiting for them if they look for it. 
 

I think it just effects your whole vibe as well to be honest.
All this stuff I'm doing with hardware controllers and stuff is a laugh and it fires you up creatively to make these cameras do more because its trying to bridge these gaps and get more out of less.
And do it for the benefit of everyone.
If I was developing stuff to control REDs etc I'd be far more po faced about it and undoubtedly looking to make money off it.
You and I haven't actually met but the first time I came across you - and then in turn discovered this blog - was at the Convergence event in London about six years ago. You were there, Bloom was there (and already seemed to me to be interested in commercially riding the wave of what was happening if you know what I mean) and I remember you had a Teradek hdmi transmitter that could do the at the time magical feat of streaming live to an iPad. At that point you were already eschewing the 5DMKII in favour of the GH2 as it was more interesting and more versatile and cheaper etc for young film makers whereas the vibe even then was heading towards the 5DMKII being the entry point and wanting to go up in price from there. 
So, whilst I understood where people were coming from on that C200 thread, in terms of how people view this stuff now compared to then where a C200 is now almost like a base point then it really felt like a shark jumping moment reading it.
It felt like punk then. 
It feels like prog rock now.

Work tools are boring. I've always found mirrorless cameras way more fun to actually shoot with.
In his day job John Brawley has an Alexa. Why on earth would he shoot 'for fun' creatively, with an Olympus E-M1 II? But he does.
There are a lot of talented DPs who shoot with DSLRs and mirrorless cameras once they down their RED and Arri cameras at the end of the day.
Yet I find in the mid-range market for video pros (wedding videographers for example) there's an aspirational value attached to the higher-end pro cameras, that is stupid and pointless. Aspirations should be creative.
Owning a Sony FS5 or Canon C500 doesn't make you more creative, it makes you more efficient at work by a slight bit, and you appear more professional because of the big nobs and bells & whistles. Sadly, it doesn't necessarily make for "better" work because I have yet to see a clear distinction between work shot on mirrorless cameras and on stuff like the C300.
In fact often the small camera stuff looks better and more inspired. The legendary Anthony Dod Mantle is known for his rough and ready work with digital, but when he went Canon C-series on Oliver Stone's recent series of Putin interviews, the look they achieved was slap dash and lazy to my eye... Could have been so much better. He used DSLRs as well on this shoot (between 2015-2017) and those shots actually came out more interesting!
Too many pro videographers seem to dream of cameras like an Alexa and RED, why shows to me how important the professional label and look is to people, but creatively, they are no better and actually worse than the small cameras.
I hated shooting with my Sony FS5. A fiddly pain in the ass, for my music video work in Berlin, it needed an OIS lens and rig for handheld - limiting the choice of looks from the lens. With a GH5 you can put any lens on there and it is instantly stable for handheld work, with a tiny form factor that gets out of the way.
The FS5's image was worse than an A7S II but double the price. Aside from high frame rates it didn't offer anything creatively over a DSLR or mirrorless camera and now I have 120fps full frame on two of my small cameras along with 240fps 1080p on the pocket RX100 IV - So why bother getting a more expensive camera if it doesn't power you along creatively as much as the cheaper stuff!?
These pro cameras aren't cheap... Sometimes I got lucky and I bought a Canon C500 for a very good price used, but do you know how many times I have felt compelled to take it out and use it for artistic work? Zero times.
Kendy Ty is another example of a pro who downs his workhorse RED and shoots with a DSLR... The camera gets out of the way to such an extent he can shoot short films in public and direct the actors at the same time as being the main cinematographer. His work sticks in the mind as some of the most creative and spontaneous I've seen and there's not a C200 in sight... zero need for one!
I think pros have by-and-large completely forgotten and lost the spirit of the DSLR movement back from 2010-2012 as they sought efficiency. XLRs, built in NDs, yadda yadda. Blackmagic as well, when they ditched the small cameras and went all-out URSA on us. Canon too... Oh wait, they never got it in the first place, and they invented it!
Cameras should not just be about making money. That's how an art-form gets boring. That's how it dies.
They are not just about doing a job.
They're about creatively enabling artists and they're about democratising the art form so that price doesn't act as a road block to new talent.
Of course Canon only care about profit, they are not interested in that.
The Olympus E-M1 II's stabilisation isn't seen on any of the pro cinema cameras. It's unique. It offers something creatively to the result that a bigger, more complex shooting rig simply does not.
On the audio side, so important creatively, small mirrorless cameras used to have limitations and some still do - but with XLR boxes with phantom power that fit in a hot-shoe, you can't really complain. Audio is not a big limiting factor on the Panasonic GH5.
I still know that pros have their professional reasons for going Cinema EOS or Sony FS or RED or even Arri... Workflows, codecs, ergonomics, power, performance, looking-the-part... I'm not denying their reasons for one second, it would be so naive to suggest they drop the workhorse cameras and use a mirrorless camera for paid work.
But the creative side of the small cameras is what matters to me and I think it is being overlooked as specs in the $6000-$10,000 pro market hot up.
Sure, you can shoot all day on a big battery to a small broadcast ready codec with the C200, very practical... But can you put a 1970's Super 16 lens on there? Can you increase the character of your images by a factor of 10? Does it have an anamorphic mode? Nope.
If I ever buy a C200... Shoot me. It's over.

Right click on the clip in your bin or your timeline and go to "Source Settings"
 
You get RAW controls for exposure, tint, and color temp. LUTs can be loaded with Lumetri.
 
I'm getting pink highlights when I pull the exposure down on BMPCC and ML RAW footage, but this is still pretty great.

Oh dear. Well the whole style is supposed to be a mix of documentary and fiction, which makes it so believable. If you're going to criticise on something small, it at least helps to get it into perspective by mentioning what you DID like, if indeed you did like anything at all, you miserable person.

what his videos scream out is that the camera and the lens he is using are the least important aspect in the whole production.  His resources are likely spent elsewhere; socialising with fellow creatives, travelling and subconsciously scouting locations, living a cultured French lifestyle - he probably has parents who are also artistic or creative.  Writing, reading, watching independent cinema.
 
I imagine he's a guy who would decline an alexa 4:3 and a set of round fronts because it would hinder his apparent efficiency and holistic working process to film making.
 
I'd also hazard a guess Kendy won't even have realised he had a staff pick award or the notice a boost in vimeo plays thanks to this topic on eoshd.
 
On the complete opposite end of the spectrum we have the forum culture who are driven by the technology side of things.  Resources spent on things like:-
electricity, regularly upgraded computers and camera gadgets, socialising with other tech driven people in an artificial social environment, sitting at a computer desk rather than viewing the world, writing (forum posts), reading (forum posts), watching camera test videos rather than real films.
 
 
Obviously there are half way housers who are interested in both creativity and technology but ultimately having the technology and consuming taking up valuable time is going to impact on the pure creative aspect.

Bullshit. I have seen for my own eyes putting more powerful equipment in the hands of aspiring filmmakers does inspire them, does improve their cinematography and does allow them to get noticed. This community wouldn't even exist if it wasn't for the gear.
 
You won't know any of my work if it wasn't for this platform, which is based on the gear.
 
Let's knock this content is king nonsense ON THE HEAD permanently from now on. OK?

Andrew, what version of OS X are you running?
 
I'm curious because you mention the performance in Resolve, and I'm finding it to be markedly worse under 10.9 because Nvidia hasn't released proper drivers yet. Are you still on 10.8 or some other variant?

nahua, you're doing this wrong - you need to interpret your image sequences as 23.976, and set your sequences to 23.976. Then they will play back at the correct 24fps without any interpolation or repeated frames.
 
You can go a step further and go to Preferences/Import and set 23.976 as your default framerate so that new image sequences that get imported already have the right framerate.

Look no further!
 

The biggest claim to relevance most of these cameras bloggers have is early access to gear. Magic Lantern doing their thing openly where anyone can download/install (or even compile alternate builds) and have a play with it really overturns that hype hierarchy and puts the celebrity camera bloggers on the defensive, playing catchup.
 
I don't want to sound like I'm attacking them personally, but seriously, put any of their "short films" (which are typically nothing more than camera tests anyway) up against real filmmakers and it's pitiful. I mean the whole thing is just so transparently about marketing, the people who are still hanging on their words are a lost cause anyway, unless they're new to all this and haven't figured it out yet.
 
It is rather amusing to see them backpedal and try to justify the positions they're taking in order to downplay a free firmware upgrade giving 14-bit RAW on a full-frame sensor. I mean just read that sentence a few times and really think about it. Laughable.

Why on earth are they being so obtuse about this? First NEX over m4/3, now Leica over EF in m4/3. It's like they don't want to make money.
 
Meanwhile the whole video landscape is changing so quickly that what looked like an amazing and somewhat indispensable new piece of kit is going to be an also-ran while everyone shifts over to FF and APS-C again (assuming the RAW hack gets fleshed out on non-mk3 bodies).
 
I mean I understand we have a skewed vision of what the market wants, but seriously? They thought Leica was a better fit for this over EF, even dumb-EF? Must be a stills thing.

The biggest claim to relevance most of these cameras bloggers have is early access to gear. Magic Lantern doing their thing openly where anyone can download/install (or even compile alternate builds) and have a play with it really overturns that hype hierarchy and puts the celebrity camera bloggers on the defensive, playing catchup.
 
I don't want to sound like I'm attacking them personally, but seriously, put any of their "short films" (which are typically nothing more than camera tests anyway) up against real filmmakers and it's pitiful. I mean the whole thing is just so transparently about marketing, the people who are still hanging on their words are a lost cause anyway, unless they're new to all this and haven't figured it out yet.
 
It is rather amusing to see them backpedal and try to justify the positions they're taking in order to downplay a free firmware upgrade giving 14-bit RAW on a full-frame sensor. I mean just read that sentence a few times and really think about it. Laughable.

Does it leave a sour taste because I am being sour, or does it leave a sour taste because I criticised someone you like?
 
I suspect the latter.
 
Really, it is time for a more open and honest debate on the merits of our DSLR community leaders I think.

For god's sake, why can't people just be positive.
 
If your free raw on a DSLR is so much of a hassle or too soft don't shoot with it. Spend $15,000 on a C300 instead, but first ask yourself how many 128GB CF cards you can buy for $15,000.
 
When you are shooting a live event you will be swapping cards every 20 minutes and breaking the flow, not practical. Don't shoot with it.
 
For when you are working on the performances, the lighting, the set, or shooting in fits and bursts documentary style the small 128GB card is not an issue. By the time you have shot 20 mins of footage, you will probably have spent an hour doing off camera stuff or shot selection or composition and the million other things that happen to get a good shot sequence together. Changing the card every 2 hours doesn't seem like a chore to me. Then after that the raw is whatever you want it to be. ProRes transcode... Done. Nobody should be archiving uncompressed raw, it doesn't make sense not to compress it in some form.
 
Raw is only big on the CF card, it doesn't have to be as big on your drive. You're shooting raw - that means you choose your codec.
 
In my view of it, the 5D Mark 3 IS shooting ProRes. It's raw! You capture the data and send it to ProRes land. View it like that and tell me why drive space is still such a big issue.
 
Best of all, raw gives you the ability to leave picture profiles and other camera settings like ISO alone and SHOOT. Wrong WB on H.264 and you are screwed. Wrong WB on raw - well there's no such thing as wrong WB with raw unless you blindly fuck it up in post and even then you have a much larger ability to fix a dodgy exposure or other problems which would have been baked into H.264.
 
H.264, be it on the FS100, GH3, GH2, whatever - is not going anywhere near my serious projects from now on. Raw all the way.

Tony Wilson has probably forgotten more about cameras and lenses than any of us will ever know. Do yourself a favor and take a minute to really grapple with what he's saying. Of course he has a sense of humor too.

Tony Wilson has probably forgotten more about cameras and lenses than any of us will ever know. Do yourself a favor and take a minute to really grapple with what he's saying. Of course he has a sense of humor too.

Tony Wilson has probably forgotten more about cameras and lenses than any of us will ever know. Do yourself a favor and take a minute to really grapple with what he's saying. Of course he has a sense of humor too.

Tony Wilson has probably forgotten more about cameras and lenses than any of us will ever know. Do yourself a favor and take a minute to really grapple with what he's saying. Of course he has a sense of humor too.