fuzzynormal

great shots mixed with what seems to be intense story telling. What's not to like?

​No, it's just a 33" "silk" translucent umbrella. Like so:

​I shot a small doc late last year with the GX7 and GM1. Hindsight being what it is, I'd say the EM5II would have been a better cam for that work. The 5-axis being a killer feature and the ability to record AND MONITOR the recording audio on cam is incredibly valuable. Still, the GX7 image is certainly better, it's just that all the handheld shots from the Pany's are a tad shaky... but that's okay. That vibe sometimes works. FWIW, and I don't know what you're going for in your doc so take this with a grain of salt, I'd think about doing your entire film with one cam and one prime lens. Something around FF eq of 50-70mm For me, there's just something pleasant about watching a film that has a very simple and cohesive visual aesthetic. Plus, if you're not fretting about loads of gear one can tend to concentrate on the more important things; visuals and story. But, again, I'm a K.I.S.S. kind of guy, nothing wrong with the alternative if you can keep it all under control. Good luck!

Super simple. 4pm-ish sunlight key through a silk umbrella. No fill.

​Yup. Although I hear the Lens Turbo II is a better bet. I don't know, just the opines I've seen on the 'tubes. Is the quality the same? Maybe. I think they're probably all made by the same orphanage/factory in Zhōngnán.

​It's a Fotasy speedbooster.

FWIW, I started experimenting with stuff. First try: I hooked up a Fotasy ($115) EOS-m43, put my old Nikkor 50mm f1.4 on it, and shot a low-rent PR vid with it. I stopped down to f2. Not bad. As mentioned before, I'm not terribly discriminating about bokeh, just want shallow DOF to really knock away background. That said, bokeh's a bit busy, but I'm encouraged. My next step involves a cheap Chinese speed-booster and the FD mount with a 55mm f1.2. We'll see how that goes. More than anything, I think I appreciate the idea of buying two cheap primes, a speed-booster, a dummy adapter, and then getting 4 focal lengths out of the deal. Whenever I can do more with less, I like that.

I got GAS. Burp. At any rate, looks perfectly competent for any number of things, shouldn't be too hard to make it do whatcha want... But you can say that about a lot of cameras. Maybe even the one on your shelf. Still, these new developments have me looking Sony's way. Good on them.

The XC10 the worst thing since Chicago Deep Dish Pizza.

​On the internet, I always ALWAYS assume the the latter until I prove it to myself otherwise. That's a good rule of thumb, BTW.

​I have a client that sends me on international tourism shoots every once in awhile. Cams like these with a small tripod are ideal for that assignment. It does seem like a very specific piece of gear that compliments a shooter's arsenal rather than defines it. If it fits your needs, it's kinda a cool tool. So be it, but I really don't think it's not ever gonna be a hot seller. And truthfully, the IQ might be better or worse than other options, but that's splitting hairs for me and my overseas shoots. I have to consider other stuff. If the IQ is not a disaster, (which it ain't) other things take priority. One positive, the form factor is just small enough and DSLR-like enough to allow it to fly under the "hey-look-at-me-I'm-a-pro-over-here!" profile. Anyway, I'm curious enough to try it...

Yup. That's sensationalist media that people get wound up about... it's almost completely irrelevant that it's not reality. It's a fear being stoked simply because it's the kind of ridiculousness they keep hearing on local news broadcasts and online. The same thing happens every damn year in regard to sharks. Nothing new ever happens regarding sharks and humans that hasn't happened for eons, but because it sells advertising via page views and paper sales, publishers print the stuff every August. Again, I don't even think any of this even hits the media radar if "drones" were called something by any other name. At least that's how it happens here in the U.S. What sort of recurring sensationalism do you Brits have to endure? BTW, if BranitFX really wanted to make that video look incredibly authentic, they really needed to rotate the screen vertically.

​Enamored with the aerial look three years ago. Now, not so much. Visual candy, yes, but once you get full up on the sweets it ain't so good...and everyone's got an ice cream cone these days. I got a corporate client demanding the stuff upcoming in August. Not particularly looking forward to wedging that type of visual into the production. Oh well. Technological progress.

​Looks perfectly fine and accomplished to me. The director's subjective decision regarding color was on target as far as I was concerned. Creative use of compositions and lots of fun production value for an indy music vid. Good work.

Depends on what you want to do. I wouldn't recommend necessarily making a wildly dynamic food video "just because." If it fits what you want to do or are hired to do, sure... but there's something to be said in making a video that's a bit more timeless and classic too. I don't do extreme food cooking like I'm base jumping of El Capitan, so that commercial looks a bit silly to me personally.

As an American I can tell you we fret about many trivial things and are lax regarding the profound, but there are indeed idiots that fly these things without much consideration. They are dangerous in a way, but I feel this is more newsworthy as an item of media paranoia than a serious peril to anything. Keep in mind this sort of thing is a way for politicians to "get tough" on a perceived ambitious threat --that, oh by the way, just so happens to be an industry that doesn't have any lobbyist dollars to tell them otherwise...or any type of social traction. It's a soft target. That's the pragmatic political reason these quads are destined to be regulated drastically. If for some reason the nomenclature for these things was "Remote Controlled Model Helicopters" or "RCMH's" rather than the loaded word "Drones" I doubt this would even be much of a public interest story, to be honest.

​Quite a lot, depending on how you handle it. It's not going to make every-single type of shot better, but if you work within the 5-axis' strengths/limitations, it'll reward the effort. The main strength I've found is that it'll allow you to do some shots quicker and easier than you'd be able to do otherwise. This sort of cam is really good for run and gun music videos like you see here, corporate shoots where you're grabbing lots of documentary style b-roll, and things like weddings. It's a lot of fun, great for a lot of work, but not perfect for everything. The interesting thing I've discovered using it is that when you hit the limits of the stabilizer's capacity, you need to recognize how to pull back from those limits. Once you go over the 5-axis' abilities and start getting the jello-warping, that's no good. You need discipline not to over-do it. So, you know, when you see other footage from this camera shot by an unskilled enthusiast, these mistakes creep to the forefront and don't make the camera look good. But, if you're considered in what you do, it is pretty enjoyable to use. I suppose you could say that about any cam... I wouldn't discourage anyone for getting their hands on it and giving it a try. If it fits for what you want to do it might be the ideal tool.

​Eh, never bothered me much. You can get easier interview shots with a FF cam, sure, but otherwise it's a really great image for not a lot of $$.

I recommend it. I've shot a ton with it over the past year. Very valuable cam for me.

I think it's great to see the camera being used guerrilla style like that. Lots of fun and it's really a great tool for that sort of work. One of my production pet peeves though in full display here: Your actors gotta run full speed or it looks ridiculous, doesn't matter what camera you use. I see this mistake way too often. Hey, just ask Mr. Thomas Cruise, he'll tell ya.

So I'm kind of believing that we've hit, for all practical purposes, a kind of pinnacle of digital IQ in motion pictures.* This does NOT mean that cameras stop improving, but I'm implying that from now onward if "you" (a typically casual end-user consumer) buy a newly released camera, you're gonna have imaging that will look great for the rest of your life. Yes, in the future the DR will be wider and resolution will probably be 16+k plus, but even so, watching an image on a 80" monitor from 10 feet away will kinda look similar to 4K, even good 1080, for that matter. 4 decades ago, great motion picture IQ wasn't a consumer possibility. 8mm film stuff shot then looks like it was shot then. 3 decades ago consumers were shooting NTSC video on crappy CCD's. That stuff is dated. It bears the mark of the 1980's. However, if you go film a scenic of, say, Florence this afternoon then it's still gonna look great 4 decades from now and onward, which is kinda cool --and sad in a way. The advance of technology is wonderful, I'm just musing on what's lost when we gain. For instance, personally, I have a tendency to make my pristine footage look retro through lens choices and post-production. I feel images need some sorts of "flaws" to feel authentic. I grew up in a darkroom, so I nurture that aesthetic nostalgia in my images. And, of course, many people love instagramming their stills, so there's still a strong desire to 'analog' the 'digital.' Could this tendency be an attempt to psychologically grasp a past that's easier to comprehend rather than the future that is rushing to us non-stop? Anyway, that's all part of the mix too. This sort of stuff, maybe it matters more to us older folks that have this visual legacy that bears the mark of technological evolution. I suspect new kids aren't hung up on this sort of thing, they just go do stuff, and they get to do it without an obvious technological time-stamp. Any thoughts? * talking' 'bout 2d imaging. 3d and holograms will surely come along somehow, but that's a different story.

​To hell with you guys. I'm going to shoot an entire film in real time, with 28 different scenes, and in one take --from the top of the empire state building. http://gearburn.com/2012/06/the-aware-2-worlds-smallest-and-fastest-gigapixel-camera/

​You know, I wonder... and this may be way off the mark, but is there any chance that this sort of skin-tone argument is actually flipped in Japan? I mean, maybe the Japanese prefer Sony's color science to Canon's? Anyone know anything about that possibility? Just curious.

​I tried my old EM5 with the Pany 150-300mm. Didn't like it. Weird results. In cam stabilization was enough.

Well, a Sony camera will have a bunch of different frame rates and motion picture settings (sometimes including good 'ol 60i). If some dude just turns on the camera, sets the kit lens to f8, runs everything in automatic, and starts shooting with these non-cinematic video-ish settings, then you're going to see what a Sony cam can do to NOT look like film, but that doesn't mean it can't do it. Which, in turn, means that the motion images bmpcc produces doesn't necessarily create better filmic results ultimately. It just creates them by default. But maybe that's what you meant? That an operator can't do anything with a bmpcc besides film-style imaging? So they can't screw it up, as it were? I mean, I like the BM cams, but just because Sony has more frame rate options and default frame rate settings that make their footage look like a laserdisc from 1979, let's not condemn it to inferiority.