fuzzynormal

Pffffst. I'm not going to laugh at that at all. Not enough DR on that footage. And the skin tones? [eyeroll]

Agreed. My next build will be a Hackintosh PC with all the same guts as a MacPro, just 2/3rds cheaper. Not the highest end for performance, but will allow me easy back and forth between Windows and OSX. And, yeah, my wife is interested in FCPX, so we'll give that a shot. As for ProRes, there's a pro option for spitting out ProRes from one's NLE, but it's expensive. As an alternative, I've been able to use Footage Studio for one of my clients that wants ProRes. Otherwise, it's well encoded h.264 for most delivery on the jobs I do. Indeed. I have. Love the speed, don't like Premiere on WIndows too much, but it's not a deal breaker.

I've been using Premiere (again after a stretch away from it) for half a year now non-stop. This time on the PC and as well as on a Mac. When I edit with premiere on my 8 year old Mac, the premiere GUI works better than it does on Windows. Now, when you're cutting footage more than 40 hours a week, having a GUI that's refined is necessary. Using Windows just feels "shabby." Sometimes I click something and it doesn't work, other times it does. I try to move things with the mouse and it goes all "scribbly." Annoying stuff. Rendering is great on the PC though! Ultimately, I think I might just make a Hackintosh using the same hardware/chips found in the Macs. Might be a happy medium.

I don't hear it too much honestly, but I've been filming in city environments, so lot's of ambient tone. Anyway, it's not like you'd use the camera audio for much anyway. Any hand shuffling on the body translates into noise "crackles" on the mic. Plus, the mic fidelity sucks.

there are plenty of solutions for video production these days. We're not left wanting for solutions. It really is an embarrassment of riches.

Anyone see "Moonlight" yet? I met Barry Jenkins the director once a long time ago and he was pretty chill, oozing with insight and creativity. My cousin did the film school thing with him at FSU. And I liked "The Nice Guys" for all it's endearing shabbiness.

I'm gas'ed out for the moment. Truth is, I'm going to be selling off most of my cameras and lenses. Around March I'll look closely at the Oly offering, but right now I'm not eager to pick anything up. I'm not really ever that eager to buy brand new cameras... (somehow I manage to do so though)

It's a safe argument to say that the wider FUJI primes are not necessarily the better value, but if you really want the faster glass it's worthwhile. My wife has a 35mm f1.4. I think it looks more than sharp enough for video interview work, which is primarily why we got it. And I also tend to like the 35mm FOV for interview shots. I doubt we'd get the FUJI fast primes if a certain type of still photography was our main goal, but stills are not our priority.

I like the extra shallow dof with wide open lenses for interview shots, but yeah, if you're not a shooter that wants that particular thing, using the f2 lenses is a good bet.

Well, I guess I can literally say that Olympus has been so far up my ass, that they left an impression. I do remember laying in the colonoscopy room and thinking, "hmmm, I wonder what resolution that camera has? Hopefully the DR is good." BTW, John, in all seriousness, I'm trying to get an Olympus rep her in SoCal to visit a film festival I'm part of and do a demo of the EM5II and EM1MII during the event in January. If you got any idea who I can contact, much appreciated.

Gear is so cheap you're gonna have the majority of users making technical mistakes. They're hobbyist, not pros.

You're not wrong about Oly. And I shoot Fuji as well, so all these things are part of the mixed bag. The thing is, when we're talking price, when we're looking at cameras within similar classes, the difference is typically a few hundred bucks. At a certain point, determining my camera purchase can turn into a "penny wise and pound foolish," decision. A few hundred, or even a grand, is a small price to pay to own and use a camera that I'm comfortable with and does the things I need it to do. You know how it is. You balance liabilities of the gear with the needs of your work and one's own biases. For instance, I just did 6 30-min documentaries in 6 months. I did it with the GX85 and EM5II. I'm not lying when I say that I'm glad I did the job on these consumer cameras rather than something like an Arri. One would look INCREDIBLY better than the other, and I would love to use that camera for many many many things, but I wouldn't have been able to do half the work load (nor the radically informal work that yielded a lot of good results) without the flexibility of these goofy, small, hybrid, IBIS, 8-bit, cams. I know it's hard to fathom among a forum like this, but having the best IQ is not always a priority. My favorite industry idioms comes from the National Geographic guys. It's simply, "f8 and be there." And I think you can understand the sentiment of that saying. That's why I can't get caught up to much in the IQ debate. My factors for my particular work rely on a lot more than just IQ. You'll have other needs. Someone else will have other requirements as well. For instance, I'm doing a cinematic doc/narrative in 2017, and I plan on using a Sony F5 and 100% static shots, so it's always always an "it depends" sort of answer with tools one decides to use for a project.

Eh, many just want affirmation that they're correct in their decisions. We're all guilty of it. Being able to step away from that insecurity is part of what separates the the accomplished from the enthusiast.

When I can finally buy the perfect ink pen, I'll compose my masterpiece. It's going to be awesome. Just you wait and see.

"I don't like movies because of the plot line."

Yeah, let's not let a half year thread that lists for over 70 pages go off on a tangent. ;-)

"I no longer want to pander to the times."

I only have experience with the Oly lens, not the Panasonic, but I certainly like the Olympus glass. It's so useable as a manual lens for motion picture shooting that it's been the workhorse on the b-cam for a doc series I've been shooting over the past half year. BTW, that doc was shot (mostly) on the GX85.

FWIW, I'm undertaking an effort to transition out of doing "work-for-hire" and going into producing and underwriting my own commercial projects. The risk is greater, the pay is less, but the creative reward and personal ownership aspect of that possibility are too intriguing. My wife and I have spent the last decade setting up our finances with modest passive income so we can pursue this ambition. I'm also of the mind that the current democratization of imaging equipment is going to make technical accomplishments very very moot in the immediate future. And the people that rely only on their expertise in using that technology might become moot as well (outside of the upper echelon of production). So, I want to position myself for that assumption. What I offer creatively HAS to be more valuable than the gear I bring to the table. If I don't believe that, then I'm in the wrong biz'ness completely.

Platform and NLE info please?

Not a fan, myself. The GX85 does not have a good EVF for continuous use when compared to the competition...and apparently the G80. Next to my EM5II and the peaking on that camera, it's a disappointment. Kind of the only bad thing about that camera though. If you're going to do a lot of EVF filming, I'd recommend against the GX85.

Looks like another great value from Panasonic. Ridiculous how practical their cameras are. Still interested in Oly though, ain't gonna lie.

Thanks. Always good to hear as these folks are personal friends of ours and it's not easy to tell sometimes if the things we find charming and interesting about them exactly translate effectively for an uninvolved viewer.

The last doc I made was a passion project. My wife and I didn't pay anything to do it, 'cept our own travel costs. Since documentary production is so simple, I can't really imagine 'em needing to be too expensive these days. If you're capable of being your own crew, you can certainly do it for "free."

Just as a point of physics from a goofy layman (me) that can kind of only half remember high-school science classes: molecules that get colder move slower. After all, absence of vibration is actually absolute zero, right? That's not exactly relevant, however. Computer components being exceptionally cold won't change the laws of electromagnetism and the speed of light. Waves of electricity are unaffected. Of course, your components could get so hot that the molecules in the components would start to fly away and irradiate so violently that certain components fail. That's always impressive. Humans tend to like to see things burn and get blowed up real good. It's a fun primal thing we all share. All that said, if you computer is hot, cool it.