fuzzynormal

You're not wrong. Good specs help sell cameras. People like me say they don't need it, but in a few years when all manufacturers offer it and it's decent across the board even on middle and low-end models, I'll end up with it --and when that happens I assume I'll find the same practical use for it as everyone else, for sure. Just not going out of my way to acquire it right now.

Yeah, that's my thing too. Give me a person manually hunting for focus if need be. It's actually a pleasant aesthetic, I think. I'm not knocking anyone that uses AF. My wife does, for example, (she's stills oriented) but I'm just not that into it for motion pictures...and when I see many cool hybrid cameras passionately dismissed because they lack high-end AF capabilities, I'm curious about that rationale. An affordable FF camera like this S5 --made affordable because it's without all the bells and whistles sounds pretty great to me.

BTW, yes, those of us that shoot 8-bit are limited in what we can do in post on a bad shot...so I've just accepted that as a challenge to try not to get unforgiving shots to begin with. It's baked in shooting discipline because you know you're not working with as much of a "fix-it-in-post" safety net. I got my start with imaging in my dad's old darkroom. I shot terribly thin B&W negatives for way too long, but as the literal costs started adding up for my bad shooting habits, (a 15 year old blue-collar kid old trying to buy chemicals and film was a huge financial burden) I learned to really consider light and exposure and figured out how to "thicken" my negative. Mostly just from the technical side of things, but developing that skill/craft led me into the artistic side.

My attempt at a quick image grade of your violinist is sloppy as hell, stylized, and heavy-handed, but it's how I would mess around with an "iffy" shot in Premiere on my own work. A few traveling mattes to control the brightness behind the subject that demands the eyes attention; take the attention off that as much as possible. Lift the exposure on the guy's face a bit, trying not to halo too bad -- which I couldn't avoid, actually. De-saturation of the blacks and highlights, WB to taste, film grain, an application of a FUJI ET film stock, blah blah blah. It's all personal preference. FWIW, I just did something similar on a project last week. Got an bit of footage where the subject is pretty much silhouette and needed to pull his exposure out. I pretty much knew going in to work on that image that it wasn't gonna look good. I just accepted that the best I could do to it was make it mediocre rather than crappy. Honestly, I wouldn't use that wide shot of the violinist if possible. Hopefully, you have also shot him with a compressed FOV and created a sequence of tighter shots to frame out and soften the background distractions. The first thing to do when on location would have been to recognize you're shooting a subject in silhouette and change angles so that bad lighting isn't happening. Good luck overall. It's always a lot of work...if you find you're doing too much in post, then reassess why that's happening. The best looking projects need the littlest touches in post-production.

As you implied, some of your issues are that you're hoping shots not well exposed can be successfully manipulated into a gratifying image. What the photons are doing in your frame to begin with seems to be the bigger problem than the grading. Your reference image of the town from above is a good example of that. Early evening light creates more drama than a midday overcast shot. Sometimes with certain footage, you're never going to get it where you want it to be. In that case you need new footage or just accept it wasn't shot well enough to begin with. As someone that does the latter all the time, I've learned to know when I get a good shot and when I'm trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

That's interesting as I'm a documentarian and, again, I rarely use AF. Maybe I'm an exception that proves the rule? As I said, I'm really in the dark as to why AF should be such an important spec to have, but if it is, it is.

I rarely use auto-focus. I am curious though, for those that seem to prioritize it as a needed spec before buying a camera body, why exactly? What are you doing so often that it's invaluable to you? This isn't snark, I just don't shoot in way where I feel I need it, so I'd like to know why it moves the needle for others. Is it vlogging? It's vlogging, isn't it?

Thats exactly the reason there's a display self in my editing office with numerous vintage cameras on it....

Jenkins shot “Moonlight” in ProRes 1080...so whatevs. Still won “Best Picture” at the academy awards. Ain’t no rules for this stuff. The best looking doc film I’ve ever shot was over half a decade ago on 1080 8-bit .mp4. BTW, when I uploaded that film to Vimeo and YouTube I did uprez the 1080 to 4K and then gave them that file. It made a big difference with the streaming IQ of the lower resolutions, FWIW, —something about how their codecs allocated data rates to those uhd videos —and I’ve been doing that ever since. Perhaps that’s an outdated process as they may have improved since then?

Gyna speedbooster with the brand name "Fotasy." 1980's era Nikkor 50mm, mostly at f2. When that lens goes to f1.4 it halos and fringes like crazy. The overall color changes a bunch too, so we don't really use f1.4 much. On the camera we used the default "Natural" setting. Shutter speed was mostly @40, except for the 1080 60p 60ss slow-mo stuff. That's about it. When I had my EM5II I didn't really like how color balance would shift rapidly on the WB setting. Still not pleased with auto WB on the EM10III, but, really, why use auto WB to begin with? (other than being lazy, which I am) FWIW, the IQ is certainly different when I put my Zuiko 12-40mm f2.8 on the camera. But, I just like the look of the vintage glass better. In fact, I used to shoot with a set of Canon chrome-nose FD primes on a speed-booster; like that look the best; low contrast, kinda warmer. Honestly, I feel like with the gear we've been using it's been comparable IQ from these hybrid cameras for 7 or 8 years now. 4K is great for some post production assist like punch in, post stabilization, or horizontal leveling, but I've not seen a remarkable change in my 1080p deliverables for quite awhile. I mean, our GH5 footage is more "gradeable" but it's not like the IQ blows me away...even on the good codec footage. My old GX7 still looks awesome to my eye. I'm glad we bought a GH5 a few years back and a collection of Voightlander lenses. It's a nice camera, but I'm not thrilled we dropped as much money for that cam and new glass when the old gear was performing just fine. (aside from the 4k slow-mo of the GH5, which I leaned on way too heavily and I'm now glad that crutch is goone) As you can see, I'm definitely not in the market for anything high-end, so take all my input with a grain of salt if you're aiming for equipment that does more.

If anyone wants to see cam test of EM10III footage with vintage glass, autoWB, and a speed booster: https://vimeo.com/path88/review/444427937/9888f03bd9

Sure. As mentioned it's shot with vintage glass on a cheap speed booster. Um, what else... "Natural" color profile, no tweaks, no color correcting. Auto-WB so you can see how it'll drift into strange colors every now and again. 4K Frame rate is 29,97 and I believe I was shooting with a 40 shutter speed. Did a few 1080 60p shots in there. I guess that's pretty much it. Focal Length is 50mm x 0.7. When I open that lens all the way to 1.4, it really fringes and halos. Pretty wild. I've also shot a bit now with my Olympus 12-40mm 2.8 Pro Lens. That's a whole 'nother look completely. Much more sharp and clinical. https://vimeo.com/path88/review/444427937/9888f03bd9

I can upload a montage of my camera test footage from when I bought my EM10III if anyone is curious. Shot mostly in 30p 4K with some shots in 1080 60p. Used a 1980's Nikkor 50mm lens on a no-brand Chinese speed booster and a cheap Zomei variable ND filter. Most shots at f2.8, some wider. Auto-WB. I'd film a movie with this camera set-up. Why not? So, yeah...if anyone wants to pixel peep some of my 8-bit 4K with that setup, lemme know. I look at it next to my GH5 footage and I can see differences, but it's marginal, they don't worry me much. I like the color out of the EM10III better, actually. Oh, and when I use this vintage glass, the IQ is wildly different between f2 and f1.4. Color, chroma aberration, softness, etc. All the flaws that some avoid, I'm like, "Eh, let's roll with it. Looks cool." At any rate, maybe this all rolls back to the arguments we've all been having (at this indy level of production) as cam tech advances. Ultimately, you're making gear decisions based on what you got available and what aesthetic you're aiming for --then making it fit in your budget. I've never had a big hang-up trying to achieve pristine footage because what I grew up watching was visual shit regardless if I was at a movie house screening or watching something on VHS. The times I'm paid to care, I try to. Otherwise, [shoulder shrug emoji]. Just one old guy's POV. The "Film Look" demands flaws in my mind. I'm not going to stop appreciating all the cool Walter Hill movies I love because there's a hair in the gate, y'know? It's the other bits of the craft that create "cinema."

Does that work fast enough if you have an old manual lens on there and the camera body doesn't know what FOV you're using? Do you take a moment to program the focal length into the camera in between different FOV shots? Or, do you just rely on two or three focal lengths and quickly hit different custom set-ups with pre-programmed lens mm setting as you go?

I bought a refurbished EM10III on eBay for $300. Warranty and all. 5-axis IBIS and 4k. Battery life is impressive as is the IQ. Also shot a bunch with GX85's. Comparable camera to the EM10III, but the IBIS ain't quite as good.

I've recently been developing 120 film shot with a 70's Mamiya. You're right. Those that like analog will hew to the aesthetic. I don't mind people doing stuff with what they want to do stuff with; got better things in life to worry about. I'm fascinated by technology. It's fun to see advancements even if I'm not benefiting from the latest and greatest. For instance, I found Ang Lee's last film to be a cool aesthetic choice, but my latest favorite film is "The Lunchbox," and a lot of that film looks as if it's shot on a Hi-8 camcorder...

My anecdote is simple. I moved from a GH5 to a cheap EM10III. The GH5 is awesome, but it's more than I need. I also didn't like that I was resorting to shooting slow-mo a lot. FWIW, I made a doc film 6 years ago on a GX7 and GM1. Looked better than anything I've done in the 6 years since. It's certainly not the gear making my stuff better or worse.

Yeah, well, like I said, these days my preference to just keep rolling on audio non-stop, so the lack of headphone and audio input is not a deal breaker on cameras. I'd like them to have it, but for now I'm changing how I'm doing things in general with filming.

BTW, a simple solution is to own a camera that has audio input and a headphone jack. ie.: The GH5. However, this still presents an issue in that you're only recording audio when you're recording video. As a documentarian, I really would rather have audio recording non-stop...just to make sure I get all the audio, you know. Still, the GH5 is a good half-measure. I recently transitioned away from the GH5 to an Olympus EM10III with no audio recording options, so now I'm curious for the type of device mentioned above. Always something about hybrid gear not quite doing what you want it to, but I'm glad I'm shooting with a smaller camera. That's my preference. You can imagine that I think this is a fine idea; probably not alone in this either. Good luck.

Well, to be clear, recording the audio signal from the receiver is what I do now (using the Senheiser wireless ew100 system and a portable recorder) Besides, as far as I'm concerned, the audio recorded/monitored absolutely has to be from the receiver. Operators need to know what's actually making it to "tape." This need to be done at the end of the chain. You can't really effectively monitor a signal coming from some dude wearing a mic transmitter a long distance away. Not that it's impossible, it's just too risky. For instance, if you're just monitoring the transmitter and that monitor signal drops out of range, you'd be left wondering if you're just losing the reference signal you're monitoring --or if you're losing the actual audio signal that's making it to the receiver; not knowing what's what is a really bad situation. Anyway, back to square one. It seems there's literally no professional or semi-pro product that has a recorder built into the receiver?

Agreed. Unfortunately it's why I had to write "cared" in that sentence. Anyways, no need to hijack the thread. Let's get back to the Japanese screwing up their imaging technology.

Hey, I've bought a good chunk of my lenses from that era. Good enough for cold war spy planes, good enough for me? Also, wow, remember when America could actually do productive stuff and cared a lot about science?

Which, as I understand it for their situation, is difficult (if not illegal) to do in Japan?

As a person transitioning into old-man status, can confirm.

They need B9 on their card but someone stole that ball 7 years ago.