fuzzynormal

10 years down the road when computational photography in your phone allows an obviously superior IQ than that of a FF cam, who's gonna be clamoring for the old gear enough for corporations to make $$? 

Once that market truly dries, is this the kind of project that'll be left for the enthusiasts?  Will niche' little private companies fill the void?  Will there even be a void?

Over the past decade I've been a part of thirteen independent micro or no-budget budget films.  Five of which I'd actually feel comfortable enough to show to strangers and say, "I've done this."  It's weird because I've never been too precious about IQ.

My personal-tech-craft-sloppiness-indifference does show in the final product, but only if you're looking real hard (at least I think so).

I kind of want to be better, but I also don't really feel a strong pull to eek out that extra little juice, you know?  I'm more interested in trying to shape a story by putting a bunch of note cards on the wall in the writer's room.

Anyway, I've held tight to my LUMIX cams since the 20-teens.  Also have an Oly cam.  Haven't bothered to upgrade much.  I know I'm missing out on the latest and greatest, but when I look at stuff a decade old vs. the film I just finished, and I think they both look a-okay, I guess I'm just not the type of filmmaker that's eager to change gear.

Anyway, if anyone wants to see those five films I mentioned, let me know.  I've posted them here before, but can share anew.

On 6/16/2025 at 10:32 PM, kye said:

the "K&F Concept 58mm True Color Variable ND2-32 (1-5 Stops) ND Lens Filter"... the cheapest one they'd recommend

I have an outdoor shoot coming up and have been meaning to roll over my ND stuff.  Might give it a go.

https://shorturl.at/RWJJi

https://shorturl.at/TE7qr

On 6/12/2025 at 5:57 AM, Sebastien said:

When I stick to "M", I'll see if the scene is under or overexposed, but I have to operate Iso manually, on top of shutter, aperture and ND

In general, when shooting video you don't really want SS, fstop, and ISO changing.  Best if they stay where they're at.  The ideal way to control exposure, as others have said, is to work with ND filters.

I absolutely hate the look of fast shutter speed video.  In fact, if I'm shooting, say, 30p, I'll even slow the shutter to 30 as well.  It's just a look I like.  180 rule?  No thanks, not for me.

OTOH, if that high speed shutter judder doesn't bother you, then you can always allow that to be the variable that changes your exposure.  It's the default variable for phones shooting vid so it's kind of a 'thing' now anyway.

4 hours ago, kye said:

pull things out of the discard pile

Man, I lost my GX7 years ago --and when I look at that 1080 footage I still find myself coveting it.

The best practice for trying to hone a craft is to find something youre impressed with, deconstruct it, and then rebuild it yourself. 

Learn to walk before you fly.

Editing is relatively easy but it's tedium too.  Discover if it's what you want to do by doing it. If you make something decent and compelling you'll know by the end of the process if it's something you want to go through again.

14 hours ago, EduPortas said:

That does not happen if the technical image on the 80 inch TV falls apart.

The irony being that that 80 inch TV has frame interpolation and computational image enhancement engaged on it by default.

Anyone on this forum have people in their lives that bother to adjust their "smart" tvs beyond accessing their channels?  I'm guessing not many.

Home TV sets are now literally built to destroy the original image.

And here are all of us hobbyist technicians trying to maintain the most pristine IQ.  Might be an Exercise in futility.

Weren't a lot of the most influencing and creative films ever made done with equipment significantly less sophisticated than all of this modern stuff? 

So... I don't get too wrapped up in the new fangled gear. It's all rather incredible, realitvely, tbh. 

16 hours ago, mkabi said:

Well… take it as a learning experience…

What was your job on that project?

In the future, if you have some input on it… state the gaps in pre-production.

And, also… just to elaborate on “Figure out the story you are trying to tell before shooting.” A lot of people have an “idea” or an epiphany of what they want to shoot… that’s not the same thing as a story. Usually a story has a beginning, middle and end; a good story has a climax and resolution with characters and character building (so the audience has some connection with the characters they are watching)… now having a climax… characters… may be too much… but at the very least have a beginning - middle and end (thats the bare minimum requirement). The idea or epiphany is stuck in the beginning… there is no middle and there is no end.

You don’t need to have a full on script… especially if it’s a one man band. But, write it down (may its a 1 page - point form thing) because it will help organize your thoughts.

Yup.  All those things. Brought in as an editor after 6 years into the production.  Just didn't have a decent director. Or producer. Or a writer. Or a DP. 

So yeah, a few issues.  Things happen.  It's a wierd business.  Sometimes you end up working with people a bit over their heads.

On 4/14/2025 at 1:03 PM, mkabi said:

Figure out the story you are trying to tell before shooting.

I just worked with a "director" on a mil+ budget doc that completely failed at this fundamental.

God, what a waste of time.

Got paid, but it was soul crushing trying to make an edit out of a pile of crap. Bleh. 

On 4/17/2025 at 9:17 AM, John Matthews said:

when sanity kicks in

Anecdotally, I'm not experiencing it getting better in my neck of the woods.

Let us know how it goes.  I have the 12 and find using it for video is too fiddly for me to enjoy it.  I've captured great shots with it, but not without effort.

11 hours ago, newfoundmass said:

they're truly bad actors who want to cause irreparable damage

Dark Enlightenment is a thing. 

2 hours ago, MrSMW said:

selling anything in the near future might actually be to your benefit

Sure, you get a bigger number for selling used, but the money you get for it buys less as inflation screams upward.  Hooray.

5 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

chaos

Seems like there's a goal for all of this.  Wonder what that is?  One can only imagine.  Assuming we're allowed to imagine and aren't put to death by the state beforehand.

What would supply side Jesus do?

25 minutes ago, Andrew Reid said:

if you are China or Japan with trillions invested in the US and in dollars, you are likely to start selling and putting the money somewhere else

Is this global re-alignment ultimately going to be a bad thing?  As an American I do wonder if things might improve for humanity if or time on the global stage concludes.  False optimism?

I'm not a fan of human exploitation and hyper consumerism.  Environmental abuse is disheartening.  I don't suspect the USA would curb any of it.  Would the next global power do so?  I really don't know.

Such a bummer that such promising ideals of this new nation were never met, nor could be.  Would have been nice to keep trying.

6 hours ago, Thpriest said:

half of the US population is sane

It's more than half, just not by enough.  Minority rule.  As all totalitarian states are.  Plus, there's a lot of the sane ones that like to claim they "don't do politics" Well, politics is about to "do" you.

And, you know, this fascist playbook we're seeing here in the USA is a book that is wide open.  It's easy to read because it's simple. 

The ones that are attracted to that are insatiable. And the book has been used numerous times by bad people because it works.  What's happening here is neither new or abnormal.  These folks and their followers are ridiculous people that are gross, small, mentally horrible, and should be shamed for their terrible attitudes, but they've built political momentum and they're very close to reaching their orbit.  The journey leads no where good.  

Not even for them.

Finally, I like shooting f8 on an M43rd sensor.  It's "Spielbergean cinema"! (gotta stay relevant to the website after that rant; cleanse the mental palette)

3 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

it's all about enriching themselves

I really thought I'd die before the down fall of the USA.  Mind, I figured the downfall was inevitable, like all things, but I suspected it would be late 21 st century, not early -- while I'll be checking out in the mids; could've missed it.  Bleh.

On 4/10/2025 at 1:29 AM, Ilkka Nissila said:

Can you explain? As a European I am completely lacking understanding of how American voters make decisions.

Some do it like this:

https://www.instagram.com/vanessahorabuena/reel/DFaxsz3IAjD/

Hope that helps give you some context.

1 hour ago, John Matthews said:

it will be the moment to make a move.

Genie. Bottle. Too late. 

No, in my opinion, from here it's a national existential crisis for the change to happen.  Like, mid 19th century stuff.

We got the monied power in the USA angling towards city states. Their ship has a pretty strong wake.  

Media is the rudder.  And the USA is more of a business than a country. 

If there's enough people here to lay down their lives to claw back the ideals of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, I kinda doubt it.  Most don't even understand the founding concepts of this nation much less respect them.

Trump is the idiot that will help speed run this thing, but if not for him then it would be some other puppet. Our culture demands it.

12 hours ago, Ilkka Nissila said:

I would think that those who are poor and lower middle class would not want to be swindled and wealth transferred to the ultra-rich

You would be wrong.  See, no one admits that they're poor here, they're just temporarily not wealthy.  They'll eventually be wealthy.  Somehow.  Have to support the rich to be rich, you see?  Plus, it's really hard to grasp just how truly stubbornly ignorant many people are.  There's a culture here of owning that ignorance like a badge of honor.

7 hours ago, John Matthews said:

Democrats simply have to wait for them to self destruct

Are you a senator from New York?

6 hours ago, eatstoomuchjam said:

Newsweek has a non-hyperbolic take

That hasn't been my experience.

6 hours ago, Thpriest said:

soon the MAGA people will realise they have been swindled

Nope.  Are you an American?  I feel anyone with a grasp of the culture here wouldn't be quite so obtuse.  Then again, weird times.

11 hours ago, zerocool22 said:

This AI stuff is great, it saves so much time, creating subs, remixing music, mixing the audio, soon it prolly will match log footage from different camera's perfectly. And then you can creatively focus on the overall grade.

Not sure if this is sarcasm or not, but the reason I don't want to indulge AI is exactly because of it's ability to divorce me from the minutia.

(even though what you're outlining here is not minutia.  Having AI do an audio mix?  Bleh.)

Hey, this may be completely stupid and stubborn, but I still believe that the craft of things is in the detail of things.  Always has been.   Don't know the details?  You won't know the craft.  Don't know the craft?  It's going to be hard to achieve one's voice in the art you practice.

Now, are you worried about the clock?  The time you're putting in?  Nothing wrong with that, but if you are worried, the chances are you're not making anything special, right?

Again, if your goal is to not create art, just push content, then you're eventually going to be replaced by AI totally anyway.  You got a small window, I guess.  Enjoy that while you can.

But, for me, it's not about making things look pristine or ideally technically proficient.  There's a deeper quality to things than that.  Wabi sabi

Here's an analogy litmus test for consideration:  Is music better when it's a little pitchy?

At the end of the day, I'm just one guy staying true to my goals.  I realize they're not other's goals.

2 hours ago, j_one said:

perhaps it may be a la carte for the AI tools. We'll see.

"I'm getting too old for this shit.  I'm only two weeks away from my retirement."

I'm gonna be one of those craft people that refuses to use AI. Damn the consequences.  This all sucks.  

As a documentarian, even something supposedly innocuous like audio transcribing is causing more inadvertent issues than it's solving.  It's really getting in my way holistically -- although it "feels" like it's helping in the moment.

It divorces me from the nuances and intimacy of the material.  How can I be expected to make anything meaningful to the audience or to myself if I allow an algorithm to make crafting determinations, even the simplest ones?  Tools are tools, but when the tools diminish rather than enhance?

That's a recipe to being superficial.  I don't think I want to be superficial.  Unless I'm doing corporate bull shit for the pay day.  But then, the corporations using AI can now (or soon) cut me out of that calculus anyway.

Get off my lawn you damn machines.