fuzzynormal

Is this thread ironic? I don't know. Old guys aren't supposed to employ irony. It's against the rules once you're over 50.

Fine. Simple and useful. Any decent/old 2.8 on an M43 camera are perfectly acceptable as far as I'm concerned. Really, for less than $200 you're shooing with capabilities that any filmmaker from a generational ago would have killed for.

Well, in that particular example, absolutely no question about it! ;-) Everyone buy a Gh5 instead of renting an Arri. Random guy in the internet said so.

Back in the day lots of filmmakers would shoot on older-tech film stocks 'kuz they were cheaper than the less grainy stuff. Or, they used older film stocks because it gave them a look they were going for. Not much different from deciding what sensor to use now-a-days. The thing is, technology advancement blew through the financial barrier about a decade ago. At this point anyone that's deep into wrangling the best IQ out of something...is probably just doing it to wrangle the best IQ out of something. There's literally about a hundred consumer cameras for under 1K that will allow a "Filmmaker" to go out and capture awesome footage. Hell, to support a school's volunteer filmmaking club, I just bought a GH1's for $95 and a Pentax f2.8 prime lens set 18mm, 24mm, and 50mm for $50. A laptop to edit 1080 footage can be had for, what, $250? If that's not the doors wide open, what is? Someone with skill in the craft could make that look not only fine, but exceptional. It will never look AS GOOD as a better camera in a good craftsman's hands, but people don't watch narratives to pick at the technical details. Accomplish the goals of good storytelling with decent cinematography and you're on your way. Love new gear stuff, but there's so much else to concentrate on, just can't get excited about it anymore. One more anecdote: I'm on a film festival committee, one of our selected films was shot on the GH5, another on the Arri. Hand to god, while I can certainly tell the difference, the IQ is such a non-factor it's ridiculous. The lighting in the GH5 film was creative, the Arri film lighting was boring...

FWIW, I swim in a different pond on a totally different continent, so yeah.

Defining that is a sticky wicket, ain't it?

HA! I rent SD streaming movies to save a buck, can't tell the difference from the other side of the room, so...

I think the tools are fine. It's more a question of what one can craft using them.

How can you judge anything by that footage?

Ooo, fun. Gotta get this on my wife's x-pro. Will make a great b-camera for interviews.

Crop and clean, or do a re-shoot. Unless you can't afford it, definitely do the reshoot. School of hard knocks, baby.

Quick test: record that line under a blanket. If it sounds a lot better, it's a baffling issue and you're recording in a room that's too live. Deaden it a bit.

That's fine and all. What could happen and what probably will happen with the USA internet is ridiculous. I'm speaking anecdotally about my subjective opinion about how it all fits in my life. Damn straight people are getting manipulated every day. There's a whole deeper discussion about free will and how our perception of that is constantly, and easily, controlled by these big biz'nezz-ez. The ability of online companies to emotionally sway people is fascinating...and as I sad, insidious. I no longer consider the internet a safe playground. Haven't for about 15 years. And it's always getting a bit worse. Also, you can't fix stupid -- you take advantage of it ---which is why companies that want to make a ton of money turn to those people first to acquire it. But, like I said, I could just pull the plug on it and improve my life. What's stopping me though??

You know what? Yeah, it's a bit stupid and unfair. Egalitarian is better than segregation. But there's a silver lining. I'll play contrarian real quick. It's a bit of an outlier type of attitude I suppose, but here it goes: The older I get the absolute LESS I want to deal with corporate nonsense. When they segregate me from their mainline of "content" I'll just roll without it. Good lord, it's all mostly a pile of nonsense anyway. Can't stream Netflix? Ah well. Good, that'll save me 40 minutes looking for a mediocre film to watch and then 2 hours doing so. I'll just read that book I've been ignoring for 10 months. Seriously, the more ubiquitous the internet becomes the more annoyingly insidious. I could use an industry imposed firewall. I can tell you with complete honesty, if my access to the internet turned into 56Kpbs dial-up tomorrow then I'd be okay with it. I'd consider it a f'in' blessing. I swear to God it would IMPROVE my quality of life, not diminish it. Too much internet is not helping me be a better person. Full stop. My mesolimbic dopamine pathway has been turned into an Elon Musk hyperloop by this beast. Just getting off Twitter and Facebook would save me. Seriously, I know in my bones that I'm going to be lying on my deathbed someday with this running through my head, "Jeeze, way too much time online, wtf was I thinkiiiiiiiiinnnnng... gasp...ack..." Look, I'm older. I lived an interesting life without this stuff before, enjoyed that lifestyle, and I kind of want to do it again, tbh. Those with non-stop high speed don't know what they're missing. Stop looking down at your phones! You're wandering onto my lawn, get the hell off it you young whippersnappers.

I'm gonna hook a fancy smartdevice up to one of those old Letus FF lens adapters. That'll freak people out when I tell em my film was shot with a "phone"

I'm waiting on the E-M5III too... Then I'll be DONE. No more GAS.

Knock yourself out. Take those awesome specs and actually film something interesting. That's what it's there for.

FWIW, just in general, I've been quite underwhelmed with Pany's implementation of Dual IS from other lenses as well. A big fat "meh."

Well, let's not to say the overarching concept is worthless. Perhaps it's poorly made in this instance, but a delve into the darker tendencies of human psyche is often compelling, obviously. Most motion picture entertainment in general is ultimately about "man's inhumanity to man."

I've used Fuji for gigs. Decent usability. Not great. Some quirks. That sums up all hybrid cameras, really. Nothing is perfect. But, Fuji is making a competitive camera. Nothing wrong with that. If you're in the market, check it out.

Dance can cure you of Zombism! Thats a great concept, right?

We did our little schlock horror romp in 2009 with the XH-A1. No complaints. Stills here if you're curious. I duno. Seems to hold up fine for what it is. Certainly was good enough. It's just a damn camera after all. As a person on a film festival selection committee all I can say is that I share such a sentiment. Man, I have to watch a lot of movies. These days most stuff looks technically decent IQ-wise. It's rare to see a filmmaker with a unique storytelling or visual "voice" however. There's a lot of film festival movies that are adequate. Not many that are awesome...or that even have some sort of juice to them. For example, I liked this particular film, and my colleagues on the selection committee hated it. But, it's got a little something going by perverting the horror tropes and is pretty creative, I think, in how it tells its story. Finding something like that is so much more important than how the image holds up.

The notion of this thread is wonderful. Exploitation B-movies are something to love if you have the sensibility to tolerate it. Failed earnestness is compelling. Some filmmakers (like me and my friends around a decade ago) have employed "ironic" mimicry for affect... barely making a comptent movies ourselves! But, when it's just a legitimately incompetence fueled dumpster file, man, that's awesome. I'm a member of a film festival and this year we're screening an utterly crap-tacular film by one of the most inept filmmakers I've ever seen. Ed Wood stuff. He's one of those guys where he's so bad it's good. He's actually legendary among cinifiles that follow horrible exploitation b-movies. His sensibilities are so un-pc it's embarrassing. The reason it's in our festival is 'kuz he's local and shot some scenes in our community and he knows the committee chairman. Be that as it may, it's still such a piece of nonsense that it's going to reflect poorly on our festival and we'll take an embarrassing hit for screening it. Filmfests are always political. Regardless, no one goes into a "legit" filmfest expecting to see such blatant inadequacy on screen. To give you an idea how shitty this movie is, he wrote a third of the film specifically to revolve around bad 16mm stock footage. He shot that footage for one of his movies in 1979. He's literally been making this movie for the better part of 4 decades. On the other hand, there's a film in our fest made by a 17 year old that would make y'all poop your pants in shame it's so visually miraculous.

Having a really good prime lens probably matters more than the camera, TBH. Especially for portraits. Being a good portrait photographer is mostly about the relationship of shooter and subject --and the photographer's ability at the craft. Anyone that thinks the camera is the most important piece of the portrait puzzle, well... I'd just have to up and disagree with 'em, that's all.

Any FF camera with a fast 85mm lens would be the best option. However, FWIW, my nephew shot my wedding with a GM1 and the Oly 45mm f1.8; pix turned out better than the "pro" we hired.