fuzzynormal

Yes, you're exactly right. Musing about this is interesting to us, obviously! Here's my rambling take. The Japanese engineers have long been pursuing a different path of imaging evolution, as they've been in "electronics" mode for generations. Their culture kept them away from deep considerations of what film does vs. what digital does. The Japanese simply have a different sensibility about image IQ. This reality in of itself is a fascinating dive, going all the way back to traditional feudalism culture, WWII, national pride, and their "High Increasing Stage" era of the mid 20th century. Their imaging tendencies emerged out of their unique cultural context. In other words, once their engineering IQ evolution preferences were set, there was not much room for it go off on tangents. ARRI took a different road and put people on the development team that understood the physics and chemistry of film and wanted that look. ARRI engineering cuts and adds different spectrums for very good reasons. Thus, as you say when you mention plugins, emulation of film behavior is the thing, the whole additive vs. subtractive thing, for instance. ARRI does their adjustments in camera. So cinema follows ARRI to chase the IQ they know best, and ARRI becomes the cinema standard. The phrase "color science" is amusing to me. Because, yes, the engineering is science, but ARRI is in fact making their cameras behave with purposeful (and insightful) aberrations. They aren't going for accuracy, they're striving for colors that evoke a certain perception of emotion by being "pretty" which could be considered an artistic pursuit in their engineering craft. "ColorArt" doesn't have the same ring to it though. It's all pretty wild. I mean, I'm on forums where there are darkroom alchemists chasing esoteric processes to heighten certain color dyes in film, and minimize others by changing their development chemistry -- which is weird as heck and an extremely hard way to affect an image (save that when choosing the stock or when doing the enlargement print imo) but hobbyists aren't rational, they're just playing. There's a whole sub culture of analog photographers that deliberately buy decades old expired film just to see what happens with the dye degradation. All in all, there are an infinite number of ways to achieve color rendition. But, yeah, I'm with you. Give me a decent camera and I'll affect the image with a plugin and get it in the ball park. I'm not positioned financially or emotionally to be chasing the refined fringes of things. I enjoy mulling it over in places like this, but none of this sophisticated color science could be a part of my career. I'm not nearly talented enough to indulge it, nor smart enough for that.

Ooooo, now we can talk about color dyes and developing? Anyone for a convo about silver-halide grains and subtractive color formation? Let's chat about how radiant energy is converted into the kinetic energy of electrons and how those electrons are then trapped by AgS contaminants in the AgBr crystal lattice. j/k. But if you want a rabbit hole, chemistry is a good one.

All that's true, but, honestly, I just always liked the image coming out of the GX7 better than the GH5. One's 1080 one's 4k, but ... something about that GX7 sensor. It's a damn old camera and this is a tangent from the OP, but did anybody ever figure out what was the secret sauce from that era of M43 LUMIX? I don''t think I imagined it. 😉 I mean, I look at stuff I did over a decade ago and still think, "shoot, that particular 1080 has a certain quality I like better than things I've done recently." For instance, from 2014:

I contend that the old GX7 looks better than a GH5.

I bought a used Em10iii over 5 years ago for $300 and haven't stopped using it since. Nice 4K video and you can put good vintage lenses on it for next to nuthin'. Yes, concentrate on lighting and getting a good mic (I use a Tascam DR10L) but do know there are a lot of good affordable cameras out there too. I also have 2 old GH4's in the cabinet. They're cheap as well.

What brand of camera are you using? My Oly/Lumix cams behave, but Fuji doesn't behave, and and the IBIS will shift-glitch. I sold my X-T5 partly because of this.

Oh, this deserves admiration. I've learned to try and do this too. The gigs I now accept for clients grant me autonomy. I've failed with a few clients in the twilight of my career because I wanted to protect my autonomy, but I chalk it up to not being creativity aligned, and try to not let it bother me. Well, before I found (developed) my own voice I certainly worried about that stuff -- I had to worry about the $tuff. Good on you for building something that expresses your creativity so well that people want to pay you for it.

Yeah, this was my job for a while in the middle of my career. It's a hell of a thing to learn. People, or tourist (especially tourists) going about their lives tend to look unattractive while also being ostentatious. A shooter, depending on what one needs to do, has to mitigate that or leverage that in various ways. Anyway I can't be a tourist anymore. When I visit places I'm always looking at situations with my videographer's bias and can't seem to be in the moment.

The six figure paycheck (I would hope for his sake) they gave him to do it.

Yeah. That's why marketing is so important to the companies trying to sell 'em.

I'ma going to guess he's too good for that to happen unless he wants it to.

The secret sauce is skill. As someone that used to make my living doing travel videography decades ago, this Brandon guy has really honed the judgement it takes to get the shots. There's so much going on out there in the environment and he's able to omit it, control it, and/or shape it into something impressive. It's really quite a thing to do. He could make any camera in manufactured in the last 15 years look similar to this. In fact, he has. This guy is a cinematographer that really knows how to chase the light, compose a shot, and also create advantageous serendipity. Which might sound like a paradox, but it really isn't. But, yes, images like this sell cameras. Okay, buy the camera if you'd like and start the path to making an edit like this. You can't buy his boots-on-the-ground experience though. He's casual about it all during his "how-to" segment, but it really is the biggest factor here.

That's a key point. Or "Kye" point, if you will. My handheld shooting drifts and sways a bit, as I like that sort of kinetic visual energy. Not all IBIS handle this camera movement AND stabilization elegantly. Rapid shifts of the image that are unwanted can happen. Fuji is a disappointment in this regard and it makes shooting my style of video with my X-T5 pretty much useless. Meanwhile I can "dance" pretty good with LUMIX and Olympus.

No doubt. I have a 5DMII that I think still delivers in this regard as well. What I have is good enough for me, so I've decide, "Eh, I'll stay where I'm at." (for now) 😉

Yeah. Fair. And I'm actually to the point where I'm like, "Do I even want the extra DR"? The modern look of digital imaging seems almost too pristine to me anymore. So I guess my reticence is actually morphing into a stylistic choice; which is a place I never thought I'd be when using consumer gear, honestly. After all, we usually think "more is more" right? Maybe it's just me being a stick in the mud because of my age. However, when I watch old movies I'm always left thinking, "Well, I have more imaging power than they had. What am I really chasing with this modern camera in my bag?"

Well, I've other gear for specific jobs. For instance I have a Fuji X-T5 that came along for a special birds-in-flight thing -- that fit a special lens, but it just sits on the shelf since that gig finished. The way the IBIS works in that camera bugs the hell out of me. Anyone want to buy a used X-T5? How about a fuji 150-600mm? Got a 2x extender as well.

The GH5 has been my workhorse for almost a decade now. For whatever reason, the need to move on from it has never been necessary, so I've stuck with it. For instance, AF is not an issue. Manual focus is how lenses get used by me. Slow-mo is a thing to do less of, not more of, imo. A full 10 years on, what does a different camera offer; like really offer? An extra stop of exposure? An extra bit of DR? Looking at a GH7 the thought is, "MMM, pretty nice." But then what? A big difference in ... what ... gets captured? Maybe the market has matured TOO much for me?

Well, I appreciate the mental exercises you're putting yourself through. The questions are interesting. Still, at the end of the day everyone's process is a bit different. Since arts and crafts are subjective, quantifying how those two things merge is only useful up to a point, imo. And, of course, that point is usually wildly different for all of us doing this stuff. I'd ask, do you really wanna chase what that means? It might always be ephemeral as context changes; slipping out of reach. And shouldn't such meaning remain in the realm of intuition anyway? Then again, maybe not. At least not for everybody. Perhaps being in a space without firm answers isn't interesting to you? Maybe striving for technical contentment at the limits of understanding is the thing you enjoy. That's cool too. Engineering can be artful in it's own way as well. Either way, keep poking around.

Good write up! I've run the gauntlet as well. My conclusion is that what you wrote above is the thing that'll get me through, so I accept it. And why not?

There's a colleague in my town that is trying to make "animation" films with 100% generative A.I. What would Francis conclude about someone working without 'hands' and 'head'? Or at best, no hands and half their head. Like Gerald, this colleague is hoping he's able to maintain a financially rewarding YouTube channel. It could be that he is jumping on the slop-train. But, on the other hand, at least he's making a novel effort production-wise to try and pay his bills. Whereas, my naive thinking is that there's still a chance my documentaries will be, somehow, someway, financially rewarding. And, even though that's unlikely, making docs is at least creatively fulfilling.

Nor I, but I do wonder if there's even a slim chance that enough people would search out alternatives as things keep getting worse.

Yeah, it does make me wish that an "old-fashioned-internet" niche' might be vitalized, retro-like. Can personal video online ever get boutique, avoid the corporate sadness of '"scale", and yet be worthwhile to those scurrying away to quieter internet corners? Seems like if one reflects on what happened at Vimeo, there would be a "no" to that, but perhaps the publc-corp culture of that entity made their downfall inevitable. A different mindset and private ownership might have kept it simple enough to thrive? Could some sort of modest market like that emerge from the current shit somehow? Is there a group of investors that are enthusiasts for a certain thing, like video hosting, that keep their service humming for austerity not avarice? Beats me. I'm pretty naive. If I had to guess all this is probably starting and failing in numerous places.

I vacillate between being a cynic and a nihilist, so where on the spectrum would "F these kinds of dudes in this BS society" fall?

Sure, I'll give you a deep dive. I'll also vent a little. You might imagine there would be some worry matching footage, but for this project, surprisingly not really much of a big deal. We had worked with the Alexa footage for months, so I didn't fret at all that a GH5 would do the pick ups. Why? None of the Alexa footage was shot with a deep consideration for the lighting. It was all very workman-like. And the "eye" of the shooter was decent, but average. That's really the biggest thing. Anyway, the cinematographer and director decided to bring a rigged out Alexa to a run-and-gun-available-light shoot. The dudes are older gents and they just felt like "the best" camera was the logical tool to use. Not true, honestly, but you couldn't convince the cinematographer of that notion. Which is kind of a legacy mentality with older guys, but that's what happened. There was a political element here too. It's a decent budgeted doc so the "shot on ARRI" rhetoric was desired. Okay, so the main reason re-shoots were required: there weren't a lot of compelling shots that could juice the narrative. The footage was decent to look at, but not dynamic. The cinematographer really couldn't get around easy with this big 'ol rig and sticks. Interesting things would happen situationally with the characters, but he would unfortunately deliver a single shot when dozens were needed for a good edit. He'd just end up being burned out physically as the day went along and couldn't move into interesting places for useful footage. Ultimately, a big powerful camera was being underutilized because of "reasons". An Alexa camera delivers nice footage, of course, but when you're pointing it into blown out skies and shooting mid-day with it on the regular, it's not like it'll give you miraculous results. Here's the other rub that had me slapping my forehead, the cinematographer and the director really like the crushed blacks sort of color grade. And they didn't mind the whites being blown, so... That's a style that was typical a few decades ago, right? Well, you're taking a 14 stop Alexa, throwing away a ton of information, and delivering 9 stops for the final project? That's certainly a look. And Michael Mann loves it as well. But then, why the hell spend the $$ on an Alexa in the first place? Now, in this story you're getting a bunch of bias from a guy that spent my entire career as a one-man-band. If my background was from the more collaborative perspective of traditional filmmaking, I suppose a lot of this wouldn't even stick in my craw. Don't discount my naivete'. As for lenses, the cinematographer was using a very clinical variable. Ziess cinema Zoom 28 - 80 mm. And he liked f5.6. Great lens, but neutral character to it with how it was used, so when we went out for more footage I slapped my Olympus 12-40 on my GH5, packed a few ND's, and went with that. At the end of the day, it turned into an effective modest film. Could have been better, wasn't a disaster. imo, it was too verbose and that ends up being a slog, but all that talky stuff appeals to people that vibe on the themes of the film. And while the film doesn't stretch to get beyond that sort of thing, the director is happy with it, so all's well that ends well.

Here's an anecdote regarding our level: A-Cam was an Alexa Mini on a documentary shoot. The cinematographer didn't really get enough variety for the storytelling the director wanted. We tried to make it work in the edit booth. Couldn't do it. Late in the edit/production when the budget had been burned, the two of us went back into the field to get necessary pick-ups. Those pick ups ended up covering close to 1/3rd of the film. All the footage was cut together, color graded, and released on one of the major American TV networks. Every shot looks cohesive. That pickup stuff was done with my used, ebay purchased, 9 year old GH5. And there ain't no way anyone watching that film could readily tell the difference between the two. That said, anybody got one of those Alexa-Minis laying around they want to give me? I'll trade you my GH5.