Emanuel

Well, there's no interesting piece of gear without someone behind, oh my, the point beyond is the quality of someone behind ; ) I stand, PRO means three letters and a romantic idea as far as this topic concerns. A few of PRO people don't even share their secrets at all.

There is useful know-how to learn from professionals and useless yadda yadda too... Such as same technique any curious shooter will find based on a few practice and self D2L ( desire to learn : ) The PRO tag means nothing at least to me. The amateur, on the other hand, is variably more prone to give something to the world, no less often much more than people are used to associate to the professional missing link.

An interesting piece of gear can always bring something in the right hands, for sure.

3 minutes ago, jonpais said:

A five-week class with a professional cameraman for $600.00 would be money better spent than on all this gear.

It depends on both of the parts to equate...

Horses for courses. But, I love the mirrorless camera concept. Nothing related to PRO label misconceptions.

That said, GH series are pro cameras from consumer segment.

Very interesting combo(s):

11 minutes ago, zetty said:

People speak of XLR as the end of it all but in my view XLR itself is nothing but a chunky connector standard that should have never left the studio. If anything, it's the mini XLR that should be used on the field cameras.

But then there's really no need for balanced inputs if the cable run is not very long and prone to interference -- and also phantom power is not something that is necessary with every good mic to be found, e.g. Ambient TinyMike is great and it doesn't require phantom power neither a battery. Feed from commonly used wireless receivers such as Sennheiser G3 also doesn't need phantom power; neither it is balanced, so a 3.5mm jack is totally fine. All you need is a decent preamp/ADC.

You can't be less than just 100% right ; ) One of my instructors at film school was used to say the same since my early days at film school 2 decades ago... 

13 minutes ago, zetty said:

NDs and good AF have also been implemented in the mirrorless form factor -- and so if the heat isn't a problem, I really don't see any reason going for a bigger body. The ergonomics of GH4 with a few programmable buttons and touchscreen works great for me for the run and gun type of work.

Like button on twice mode :-)

30 minutes ago, Cary Knoop said:

In all fairness though the 5x zoom range of the Leica 12-60 f/2.8-4.0 is great!  

 

Indeed. It is roughly an equivalent 24-120mm... Remember my Canon 24-105mm used as FF is only f/4 but throughout the whole range, though.

32 minutes ago, Davey said:

The GH5 is shaping up to be the best sub £2500 camera of all time. Panasonic are truly back on the map - they will shift tonnes of these in the time it takes for their competitors (at that price point) to catch up.

4k 60p will be the new prosumer baseline starting point.

 

Even though, under $1,999 shall be... :-)

2 minutes ago, Cary Knoop said:

Right!

In fact it takes a lot of powerful lights to make a shot look dark!

 

 

You bet ;-)

14 minutes ago, zetty said:

Apologies for being anal, but "pro level" to me implies a level of expertise. The skills required in different fields are -- well, different, so you cannot universally say that a cinematographer who uses lighting is on a higher level that the one who doesn't (although it might well be the case).

You'll unlikely find no lights setup in a shot into a blockbuster production, as for instance. An events shooter living from his/her craft is as much professional as an acclaimed Academy award filmmaker. Different levels, obviously.

8 minutes ago, zetty said:

Not universally. There are fields where lighting is impractical, impossible or unnecessary.

Sure, "level" in my post also includes that.

Without mention sun, moon, low light from whatever source is light. Exposure is light.

There's no shooting without a lens aperture. And shutter to couple with, of course, where light is always exposed to the sensor in the digital realm.

(if we should express it in this way)

4 hours ago, Dimitris Stasinos said:

I consider G7's footage acceptable at both iso 800 & 1600. What i am waiting for is a m43 camera with acceptable performance at 3200 iso. And as many here have already mentioned not every pro shooter uses lights. 

It depends on the pro level. Anyway... I second your expectations and liking :-)

32 minutes ago, jonpais said:

H265 would be a great option since it will deliver the same image quality at half the bit rate.

My tests haven't proved it at all, but... let it be. Maybe, that's me. I just don't find it in that way :X

http://www.thedigitalcircuit.com/putting-inspire-2s-x5s-camera-paces/

3 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

Very interesting post Tim.

The first part of it you describe is what I mean when I refer to "honesty". For me, honesty in editorial is about emphasis. You can emphasise the positive or the negative. When you take out the negative, readers switch off and they may as well read the manufacturer's website instead or the box.

There's a new form of advertorial called a 'balanced review', which are actually 80% positive and 20% negative. That the negatives exist at all in these review is seemingly all they require for 'balance' and I've lost count of the number of times people have mistaken a glossy advertorial piece for a 'balanced review'. It's very easy to do. Likewise it's easy to mistake passion and genuine enthusiasm in the product, for selling too. There are camera reviewers that get accused of this a lot.

In the end it comes down to a creative business model which doesn't compromise your content. The mission should be to say anything - even rude things (which often are entertaining and add colour to the debate over a camera) - without links to a manufacturer or PR people.

There are not enough business models being tried where the reviewer is completely unattached to a manufacturer, and whenever they get big enough, out come the offers from the PR people to the reviewer in an attempt to get them to self-censor.

Your point is controversial but quite of an interesting perspective in any case, kudos man! :-)

Still waiting for the promised Osmo going to couple to the X5S...

1 minute ago, Zak Forsman said:

Yeah, I get the same result going to an Odyssey 7Q+. Or "got" I should say. I don't own the GH4s anymore.

Curious... I'd dare to guess on here, studiodc had spotted it: "GH4 recording externally direct to ProRes... might make a difference."

6 minutes ago, Zak Forsman said:

No post funny business with the frame interpolation or blending here. This was straight DCI 4K at true 24.000fps, albeit cropped and scaled to 2K (2048x858).
 

Have you never tested going with ProRes recorded on any external device via HDMI?

2 hours ago, Zak Forsman said:

 

My understanding is that it's a codec issue, but I'm far from an expert. I just know what i see. the GH4 handled it better than most low-cost cameras, but it still often rendered motion with a "doubling" or "tripling" of the fast-motion portions of the image in single frames. It was always easiest to spot on specular highlights on passing cars. Take a look at the car's grill in this image from a clip I shot many moons ago. You see how fast motion in this frame is rendered in three "steps", rather than one smooth motion?

On the whole, this subtly nudges the perception of motion closer to a "video look" (for lack of a better term) when played back at speed. It's something that I don't see on the Alexa (the Mini specifically) or even the BMCC, BMPCC & BMMCC sensors when shooting in RAW. Certainly there are more important considerations than this when choosing a camera -- and many would say this is acceptable -- but given the choice, it's something I try to avoid.

(...) Well, IPB or not, low bit rate doesn't offer miracles. Not good enough is not good enough :-)

2 hours ago, Cinegain said:

Sorry bro! Wish it was true tho! Now I'll still be tempted to give the E-M1 Mark II a spin first.

(Have both the GH4/E-M1 now anyways, one's excellent for video production style shooting, the other is a photography workhorse; might replace both with their respective successor)

I've never found Oly any interesting on video side, well or must I say too much videoish, actually, instead? ;-)

1 hour ago, Orangenz said:

I have more interesting dreams than a camera even on my off days. Now if only you could make them come true.

For sure. But, as same as happens with plots or subplots within an inner theme, so we're talking about cameras -- our POV into this topic, not yachts, jets, jetpack, trips to Mars, right? ; )

E :-)

3 minutes ago, Neumann Films said:

Ha, I wish.  Will be able to say whatever I want on the 4th (i think).

I, aham... we all hope so! ; ) This camera is a dream to become true for first time in decades!!