IronFilm

Lol, this is a forum FILLED with people "obsessing" over much less important stuff - but also - we all respond to cultural shifts like this differently - so if this thread bothers you, feel free to move along. I do it all the time.

Here's my Panasonic 2024 travel setup:
Generic bag Panasonic HC-VX980 (integrated 31-626mm lens), 2 batteries, USB power cord Panasonic GX800, 3 batteries, lenses (Panasonic 12-32mm, 17mm f/1.8, and 45mm f/1.8), USB charging cord Variable ND + CPL that fit both cameras Olympus LS-P4 audio recorder with wind muff 3 x SD cards The total weight: about 1650g.
This setup is significantly less than my FF setup (especially considering I'd need a bigger bag, NDs, lenses, etc.). With the release of the new Panasonic 28-200mm, I thought I might get away with that but have since reconsidered. I like the idea of having two devices, one for video, one for photos and b-roll video. At $900, the 28-200mm's a decent deal IMO, given the size, but I'd probably need to sell the remainder of my M43 stuff. Also, I'd probably end up wanting more lenses for lower light with a FF setup.

I don’t know about Sony but Panny definitely does and…meh.
The issue is, it’s all baked in and for many, this might be OK, but as a photographer, I would much rather shoot Jpeg + Raw where the Jpeg is an in camera and reference at the culling stage.
I have done various tests over the years with many Fuji cameras comparing the baked in Jpeg with the final Jpegs I created from the same image using the raw and about 9/10, I (much) preferred the raw conversion.
On the back of the camera, the baked in Jpegs look great.
On social media, ditto.
But take the same properly edited image on a large screen or large print and it’s not even close.
The baked in look is a hype job…UNLESS as above, it’s at social media / lower res levels when it can look great.
And then some hate editing images which is also fine, but the reality for any serious photographer is a baked in look and a Jpeg image is ALWAYS going to be a compromise compared with a raw file.
With the S5ii specifically, I loaded up several of my favourite personal custom LUTS, but again, nah, could not get close to the quality never mind the consistency, I could get out of doing my own process in LightRoom.
The reality of it all however is most of my clients probably rarely print anything. This is the society we now live in…
They have a wedding, spend as much as they ever did on the capture, but instead of receiving anything physical such as an album as 100% did when I started out, 100% today simply download their files.
Ask them what they have done with their 500+ highly curated and individually hand edited files 1,2,5 years later and the response is, “our parents printed a couple for their mantelpiece but we ourselves have not got around to doing anything yet”.
And most never will and one day, their kids and grandkids will ask about these ‘photos’, but these digital files will have been last to time in most cases.
Industry / social rant over 😜

Having worked in Atlanta and for Perry, I’d suggest the “reason” is a convenient excuse.  
 
Production was already heading towards a slump BEFORE the recent strike and is staring down the barrel of another strike.  
 
All of the streamers are struggling to make money.  They are green lighting less content.  
 
I was talking to an LA based Panavision sales rep a couple of days ago and they they said for them production was about 15-20% of what it was 18 months ago.  
 
Production has slumped.  Strikes have and continue to menace.  Not a good time to throw down on a studio.  AI was more like the icing on the cake.  Perry is just blaming this on a decision he would have made anyway. 
 

I hope you're right - but when I hear comments like this it makes me think alot of us are probably in for a big reality check on the impact this will have on mainstream content. I'd also say that we already have ample signs that there is indeed a huge appetite for content that isn't human. It's called cartoons, animation, CGI, etc. I'm not sure of the history of animation's rise but if there was a backlash to that tech - it obviously didn't last. Also I'll say it again: my 5 year-old will not have these moral attachments to human vs non-human content - and it is them and future kids that will be driving all of this. 
But again, I hope you're right.

Thanks for the reply!
Darn, if the Sigma 28-70 f/2.8 only had lens stabilization, it would be a no-brainer for me. Partly because, in the USA at least, Sigma will replace lens mounts free of charge, so if I decided to move from Panasonic to Sony at some point, then it would be an easy swap.

The final line up for the 2024 season. 
From left to right…
S1H with battery grip, 70-200 f4 (not shown, Rode WG2) permanently on tripod shooting static full length ceremony & speeches, manual focus, 4k 25p.
Z6ii + adapted Tamron 70-180 f2.8 (not shown battery grip arriving tomorrow) with option Tamron 20-40 f2.8, stills only but can do video in an emergency. Sling on shoulder.
S5ii + cage + Sigma 28-70 f2.8 + Rode Micro as my all day run & gun, gimbal ready, 4k 50p unit (so 42-105mm equivalent). Right hip.
Zf + 40mm f2 candid stills but can also do video in an emergency. Left hip.
Single backpack with all lighting, all other audio, all spare batts, cards, power bank, chargers, gimbal etc, but actually lives in my cart along with the 2 big light stands, 40m extension reel and 500W portable power bank.

Next to nothing, there is one listed right now for a buy now price of US$825.99:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/276260362267 
Also, if this is working for the AJA Cion, then I wonder, the Blackmagic Production 4K Camera and the URSA 4K / URSA Mini 4K all share the same sensor as the AJA Cion, could the same process work for them too? They're even cheaper!

If I had not gone back to Nikon (Zf and Z6ii) for my stills needs, I would almost certainly have gone back to Fuji for all my needs, photo and video.
X100vi as my candid stills and C roll video unit,
XH2 for secondary stills/longer/wider lenses and B roll video,
XH2S as my primary video
I'm not a fan of what has happened to the V model due to TikTok/social media etc and all the availability/price nonsense, but it was and still is a sublime bit of it.
Not sure I'd pick the new vi over my Zf as a pro tool though...
As an every day walkabout, vacation etc, sure, but love me my Zf.

What disappoints you, what were you hoping for?
40MP and IBIS seems very cool!
And for the video geeks, 10-bit 6.2K 30p, 4K 60p, or FHD 240p video recording.
Built in 4 stop ND filter is nice too. 
Being able to work with Frame.io is another new thing too. 

What disappoints you, what were you hoping for?
40MP and IBIS seems very cool!
And for the video geeks, 10-bit 6.2K 30p, 4K 60p, or FHD 240p video recording.
Built in 4 stop ND filter is nice too. 
Being able to work with Frame.io is another new thing too. 

What disappoints you, what were you hoping for?
40MP and IBIS seems very cool!
And for the video geeks, 10-bit 6.2K 30p, 4K 60p, or FHD 240p video recording.
Built in 4 stop ND filter is nice too. 
Being able to work with Frame.io is another new thing too. 

I'd be interested to know what feature or capability Fuji could have included that would have prevented the OP from being beyond disappointed and let down.

Priced quite well also.

Next to nothing, there is one listed right now for a buy now price of US$825.99:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/276260362267 
Also, if this is working for the AJA Cion, then I wonder, the Blackmagic Production 4K Camera and the URSA 4K / URSA Mini 4K all share the same sensor as the AJA Cion, could the same process work for them too? They're even cheaper!

"I feel like I spent 20 years of my life swimming suddenly they let motorboats into the Olympics."

Quite the analogy! But an understandable feeling
 
And you don't think having easy to access free/perfect/immediate plastic surgery wouldn't also have a major impact upon culture? 
So? Most people are not making films every day! Most people are not even watching a movie every day. 
 But AI will undoubtedly be massively changing both how we make and how we consumer movies. 
My point is that:
1) people want to look their best in pics, thus they pose
2) culture changes, it was once not normal to smile in photos, but now it is 
So what??
Most people can't even vaguely explain how a camera works. Does that stop them using cameras??? Nope!!
Heck, there is probably nobody on the planet who can explain in great detail all of how a camera works to take a photo. 
And certainly for the average casual consumer they do not care at all in the slightest that to them a camera is a totally mysterious and magical black box. 
  
If people on this forum wish to suck on a guy, I won't be judging them for it. Let them live their lives freely!

Its gonna be way easier to direct the AI then it is to direct shitty actors. AI is improving at lightning speed, in 5 years time you can create high end car commercials from your bedroom, just based off your visionboard/storyboard, no need to gather a crew, fly across the world, lock off roads, rent gear, ... they prolly need to introduce new laws, as its easy to bypass specific location laws now.

I mean I'm not really trying to argue about all of this. I think we're all gna cope with a moment like this in different ways. What matters is we're aware that it's happening and we aren't naive about what it might mean for many of us and/or our peers' livelihoods.  

Reality TV is not even 'reality' and clearly cares little for the tenets of JSP, so I would argue that format will embrace AI with the quickness and you'll have AI-based characters that viewers are rooting for...

Sorry but anyone who's saying this looks sh*tty must not have seen the original Will Smith spaghetti one they had a year ago. THAT was sh*tty - this new one is no where near perfect, but sh*tty is just a ridiculous descriptor of something that is still developing. It is imo good enough for us to understand the implications for the art-based labor industry.

I don't think a photo real animation with no back end labour can be described as just a better animation tool. Current animation tools, critically, take years of practice and hundreds of paid hours to create each individual work. A production going from "writer, director, and 10,000 hours of professional, lifelong technical artists" to "writer, director, and a 2 month subscription to OpenAI" is, in my opinion, something to pay attention to and expect disruption from, whether you categorize it as a "just a better tool" or not.
 
Switching perspectives a little, these tools are absolutely perfect for hobbyists like me. I'm never going to hire artists, so my productions go from crap CGI to amazing CGI, and no one loses a job. There are no downsides! If that's the angle you're coming from, then I agree with you.
However, for anyone making a living off of video work, there's a very very large chance that the amount of money that anyone is willing to pay for ANY kind of creative content creation is going to decrease, fast.

It won't always look shitty. Remember 30 years ago when CGI looked like Legos photographed in stopmotion against a flickery blue screen? Let's wait 30 years on AI generated imagery.
No technology can take away the enjoyment of doing something, though it can take away the economic viability of selling it. Which indirectly affects us, because if fewer cameras are sold, people like you and I will face higher equipment prices.
Certainly AI is already used in the gaming industry to make assets ahead of time. It will be a bit longer before the computational power exists at the end user to fully leverage AI in real time at 60+ fps. When you have a 13 millisecond rendering budget, it's a delicate balance between clever programming and artistically deciding what you can get away with--and that it requires another leap in intelligence levels. Very few humans are able to design top-tier real time renderers. AI will get there, but it's a vastly more complex task than offline image generation.
But yes, AI today already threatens every technical game artist the same way it does the film and animation industries, and will likely be the dominant producer of assets in a couple years. In the near term, humans might still make hero assets, but every rock, tree, and building in the background will be AI. Human writers and voice actors might still voice the main character, but in an RPG with 500 background characters and a million lines of dialog, it is cheaper and higher quality for AI to write and voice generic dialog.

This is vastly underestimating the quality of AI based video in the near future. You must see that the tech we're seeing/talking about right now will be capable of reproducing imagery that is stunningly life like. The only thing being removed from the equation moving forward is our role in the capture process. But even that is not true - because this AI tech stands on the sum total legacy of everything humans have captured of the world to date. One thing that is humbling about AI-based video/audio etc, is that it is telling us that even our physical existence can be reduced to 1s and 0s.
There were/are human economic systems within which something like AI would/can be used in non-exploitative ways towards human beings. We unfortunately do not exist within one of those system at the moment. 

Agreed. As you say, if people want to use cams and other traditional forms of real life capture for home/family use, no one will stop them. But it's unlikely that media/film production companies in the future will be hiring/paying people who offer camera capture, set design, lighting, etc, etc, as a sole and primary service - which is really what we're talking about. Also, the AI approach won't be seen as a 'forgery' to mass consumers in most circumstances. The ones intended for insidious deep-fake purposes? Yes, of course. But most AI-based video will be seen/consumed as a valid representation of real life ala a painting. It will also be impossible to tell the difference in the future. That's just based on how far a company like Open AI has come in a year. Also, these distinctions we're making around real vs fake will be irrelevant to the vast majority of humans born into it from here on out. All realms of commerce have experienced crushing human labor disruptions in the past and present times (car manufacturing being the most obvious example). What makes this stunning and unique is that it is happening to the realm of commerce (i.e art-based commerce) that we instinctively know humans will continue to do whether they are paid for it or not. You can't say the same for alot of other realms of the human labor economy. So it will be, imo, one of the most poignant blows in the history of human labor to date. 

Some will - most won't and my kid might wax nostalgic about the days when people took pictures and shot video, but will be just fine with AI, the way we were just fine with mp3s.