fuzzynormal

The argument that financial success justifies something as a meritorious crafted or artistic success is more than a bit delusory. Pop culture just doesn't work that way.

Actually, unless I comprehended it incorrectly, that isn't the context if the initial sentiment.

It is. I do this often.

For what it's worth, I bought a single 1.8 ND and a collection of step up rings to adapt them all to my different lens thread sizes. I typically hit the field with a collection of three primes, so it's pretty easy to swap.

Look at the result and decide for yourself. Personally, I don't like it. An interesting side effect of a high shutter speed: Perceived resolution increases. Since edges of things stay sharp and defined rather than blurred it just looks like there's "more" there. However, that is not an organic image and is very mechanical/clinical to me. ...And the only thing needed to control exposure in bright outdoor light is a modest collection of neutral density filters. For mid-day sun, I like my ND rated @ 1.8; cuts down the incoming light enough that I can work my iris in the f2 range and adjust exposure with a bit of ISO play.

I'll expand on Com21's comment. A benefit of the G3, or any wireless system, is that you can have a mobile lav on a subject and monitor it easily at the recording source. The recording source and the subject can move about freely. Also, if something goes askew, like the mic rustling on cloth, you'll know about it. It's just a practical tool.

Okay, strike "action" from my response and re-read it. Also, color is not one of the fundamental tools, it's a supplemental one. More than half of all recorded cinema is testimony to that.

I hear this a lot, but it hasn't been my experience. Smaller lenses with longer focal lengths are readily available too. A little research into small M43 compatible primes will reveal numerous options. Various threads on this forum about it in fact. And go to B&H while in NYC. It's a bit crazy in there but worthwhile; better than the big box retailers in Tokyo!

Color helps, but it's not a fundamental. Fact is, folks before color like Eisenstein were kinda better at action sequences than Nolan, and Sergi was sort of starting from scratch when he did it.

Barreying, binning, codec, etc. "Cut to the chase": Which camera is best for walking around a major metropolitan area, grabbing random images, adding copyrighted music to the shots for an upload to Vimeo, and then having bragging rights that I've got the latest and greatest budget filmmaking gear? GH4, right?

Shhhh...nobody mention Michael Bay.

Since buying a wireless mic that has great fidelity, extended transmission range, useful monitoring, and is rock solid mechanically costs about 4 times that amount. Good audio gear is expensive for a reason. You're paying for the value of reliability. If you want cheap, you can always get a mini-jack lav and run it into a smartphone to record. I've done it. It works, but since you can't monitor the mic, you just gotta hope... If you can do shoots that can afford the luxury to fail on the audio side --and that risk is manageable, maybe that's a better way to go?

Proxy is a pain for shorter form edits. When one's doing long documentaries and the footage to edit ratio is something like 400:1, it starts to make a lot of sense however --as the log and transfer stage can also be a step to cull the footage.

Yeah, I don't even have the Gh4 yet, but shooting 4K, backup/archiving the raw files, and then transcoding it into 1080 will be my standard workflow for most stuff. Other times, for larger long form documentary work, I'll probably do low-res proxy editing and then re-connect only the large res clips that make it into the final cut. (it's like it's 1993 all over again! That's how AVID used to handle "hi-res" 640x480 stuff back in the day) Or not...might get a new computer this year too so we'll see how it goes.

"Loupe" it when you need it. Works. At any rate, I didn't buy the GM1 because of the image quality, even though it's pretty awesome. I bought it 'kuz it's the right size to be a stealth camera for documentary shooting. (also a good flying cam) That's what lead me to the GM1. The fact that it grabs superior video to a lot of cameras was a great bonus. It's a good camera size that fits it into a very useful niche for some of us. If you fall into that category the value is awesome.

That's the bulk of the consumer camera market you know.

35mm or 16mm?

How cropped sensor lenses behave is common knowledge among informed m43 shooters. "Impressive" is a bit subjective, ain't it?

Thank Alfred Hitchcock for that one. Well before the 80's too.

Sorry, it's not in anamorphic so it's not really a cinematic film. Right?

A full set cost me $100...and I got the cool old 110 camera to go with it.

Turn down the sharpness on the c100, bump it up on the 5D. Adjust 'til they're similar. Do it in camera, do it in post, either way. Crop factor I wouldn't worry about, but that's me.

Sennheiser MKH-416 - Short Shotgun Interference Tube Mic. It's awesome. Float it a few inches over the subjects head just off frame for interviews and it's every bit as good as a lav. You'll need a rig to do get it in the right spot... or a PA. I use a c-stand when I'm on my own. That said, even a cheaper (ME67) shotgun will capture passable audio with proper PLACEMENT. Honestly, without putting the mic in the right spot all your audio will sound bad, lav or shotgun. It's not a difficult skill to learn how to engineer decent audio. I'm constantly amazed so many people in video production don't actively study it.

If you want to be a DP then I suggest truly fretting about lenses, cameras, and all that. However, if you want to be a true filmmaker, get your hands on anything and make something compelling with it. Can you tell a story? Ideas are free. Organize and shoot a compelling narrative, let the tech stuff follow. The stream doesn't always flow so much in the other direction. It does sometimes, just not as often as tech-centric websites would have you believe. Cart. Horse. I've recently been shooting documentary B-Cam stuff with a GM1 and a Pentax auto 110 lens. Every time I look at the footage I think, man, I could easily shoot a narrative film with this thing. Perhaps that's next...?

If I were to believe half the nonsense I read about aspect ratios, I'd have to conclude I shouldn't enjoy my favorite film of all time because it's shot in 4:3