noone

I keep wanting my "photo" cameras to suffice as video cameras (Nikon D600, Sony a7, etc.) but I'm with fuzzynormal and Oliver--The Panasonic GH3/GX7/GM1 cameras make shooting video easy and fun (I have the GM1).  If everyone could afford it, I'm pretty sure the GM1 would be in every videographer's bag.  I didn't think much of it as a sills camera until I acquired a Olympus 17mm/1.8.  The way you can easily go from auto to manual focus with the Oly lens is brilliant.  I wanted to move away from MFT in 2014, but it didn't happen.  I gravitate more and more to the GM1 and I bought a BMPCC again.
Here's a video I did in between taking photos with various still cameras around my neck.  The GM1s are around $500 now.  If you have money to burn, you will not be disappointed.  The GM5 has stabilization I think.  So if you have even more money to burn   
I've also enjoyed EOSHD even more this year.  So thank you Andrew!!!!
This video is the worst that the GM1 will do!  Every shot was an afterthought to stills.  I have an a6000, and as nice as it is, it is bigger and less video-friendly.  Even though Panasonic didn't fix the mechanical shutter on my GM1, I can't get away from that camera!

Apart from realising I would like to try and shoot video of live bands in addition to stills
A) getting a Canon 24 3.5 TS-E lens and using it on an A7
and B ) an hour ago when my A7s turned up!

The extra warranty makes it tempting.
The other thing is that in a years time when we have moved on to the next big thing, the Leica version will have a higher residual value.   Pay more now. get more selling.
 
I want a high end 35mm fast FF lens for fitting a 5 piece band in shot from a reasonable distance.     I have been considering the Leica 1.4 and f2 lenses that are very expensive.  
 
It seems I will have a bit more choice soon so I might not have to pay full Leica prices for something around as good.      Still as expensive as Leica is, most of the stuff is quality and holds value.
 
As for this camera, I am tempted but will still probably get the Panasonic version.

well it can mean just about anything that doenst look like video shot at f16

Makes sense.
With my A7 and 85mm lens I just used it on the weekend at 5.6 and even that is fairly thin depth of field, at least fairly close in.
I think people forget that with full frame cameras 5.6 is similar in terms of dof to 2.8 with m4/3 cameras like the GH4 and f4 for APSC..

Makes sense.
With my A7 and 85mm lens I just used it on the weekend at 5.6 and even that is fairly thin depth of field, at least fairly close in.
I think people forget that with full frame cameras 5.6 is similar in terms of dof to 2.8 with m4/3 cameras like the GH4 and f4 for APSC..

The A7 series cameras work well with just about any lens that can be mounted except wide angle rangefinder lenses wider than something like 24/28mm.
 
What do you want to do?   Wide angle? telephoto?   normal?     Do you like primes or zooms?
 
Canon FD lenses are a fairly safe bet and you could get a couple of L lenses maybe for your money (or at least an L zoom and non L prime or two).
 
Maybe a couple of cine Rokinon/Samyang lenses?
 
Plenty of other choices.    Nikon AI/AIS lenses are also great bang for buck.

Hello there (Sorry for my bad English)

I'm the director of the film embedded above. To clarify many question talked about in this forum. I would have to explain how we shoot this.

For the equipment, we had 3 5D Mark III with 1.2.3 Magic Lantern firmware installed with 3 Canon Cine Prime Lenses (28, 50 and 85mm.) few L lenses (50 F1.2, 24-70mm F2.8, 28-300 F3.5-5.6 and 70-200 F2.8) and Samyang (Rokinon) Cine 35mm.

In term of optical quality most lenses have pretty good sharpness (to the point that most of the audience will not notice the different unless you are working in this field) as long as you keep the F/T above 4 (and less than 11). If you want to work on 2.8 or 3.5 (less than that are totally not recommended by any chance even you sharpen it up in post. If you want the soft look, it's better to use Black Pro-Mist filter or Fog instead of using lower F/T Stop) then you'll probably see a some different between each lenses. At 1.2-2.0, it'll probably be used only in certain situation and I never recommend anyone using this T/F range as it always hard to focus and the overall sharpness is bad.)

for color rendition, Samyang and Canon Cine are on par with the color representation. We found that 70-200 and 28-300 have less saturation and luminance than the rest. But it's still manageable in Post-Production to get the color to match the rest. I prefer trying best to use the primes one rather than the zoom unless it's for the sake of fast background movement or really soft background.

The good thing about Canon Cine comes to the 300 Degree focus ring which helps a lot in such a complicated shots (like 10-15 focus shift in one shot while dolly back and forth and do a 360 camera turn) Even that (with F3.5), My Focus puller cursed a lot (in Thai) !!

For those who look for a cheaper alternative to Canon, I would suggest you to get Samyang (Rokinon) as it has a full range of lens (with 50mm coming up soon). For my point of view, Canon Cine Prime are mostly for rental companies to own and rent it out (in cheaper price than Ultra Prime/ Cooke i5 or Master Prime) and still give a good optical quality for lower budget type of film.

this should help answering all the question about lenses.

For 5D Mark III with magic lantern. How we lit the scene is that we trying best to lit it in the camera's histogram range. Most of the people I knew of normally didn't do a proper testing to see how far the camera can go in terms of dynamic range and color the sensor can recorded. Everything you see in the frame is designed to take the full advantage of the camera CMOS sensor (blood color, skin mock up, on set smoke to tame the contrast down and bring the dark part up and at the same time lower the highlight down, cloth and set color etc etc.)

Most of the DPs wouldn't go that far to workout with the rest of the crew to bring the best out of camera and therefore don't get what they deserved to after long hard working day shooting it.

and last the Post-Production Workflow. We work on CinemaDNG all the way from the onset DIT to the lab. Using MLRawviewer to check each and every footage after we change the CF card (Sandisk Extreme Pro 128GB, we have 2 of them). Then break the MLV down into CinemaDNG and send it to Davinci at the lab (which required a fast set hardware to work on it at 2K DCI)

We did tried blow it up to 4K and the result is stunning as it still contain all the sharpness. I asked some dude from Canon Thailand to come and see this footage (in 4K) at the lab on the big screen and they were stun of how there little old camera are capable of. I'm pretty happy with the result though (as long as you put a lot of hard work in it to make sure you squeezed every bit of their capabilities out of the camera)

Oh .... we shot our film in Thailand .... it's pretty humid and it's 37-42 degree Celsius most of the time. The camera got heated up to the point that we were worry that we might cooked it for our next meal break, but it didn't get any damage though.


Hope all this information help : )



 

 

 

 
 
Hopefully I can post more of the stuff soon. Still 2 more days to go til I finish the film. After the lab work, I'll probably come up with the trailer that I can post once more to see the end result.

Our first shoot with the Sony A7S. Shot 1080p60 1/60th shutter with Picture Profile 7 (Slog2), with Color Mode changed to Cinema.
 
Graded in Premiere Pro CC using color curves and saturation, the same setting applied to all clips. The goal was to see how well the A7S handled skintones under very challenging, changing lighting conditions: low light, multicolor spots, etc. NR was only used on the first clip (very very low light).
 
Shot handheld using the Sony SEL18-200mm APS-C lens (FS700 kit lens), AUTO ISO, AWB, AF (center spot focus area), IS, manual zoom, built in mics. With this lens and settings, the A7S makes an excellent low-light live/event camera.
 

Got the sony A7s while back in Hong Kong for vacation, full user experience and review coming soon, be sure to let me know what you would like to know about the camera so i can put it in the review. I was fortunate enough to listen and talk to Den Lennie about the sony a7s, which has helped me greatly in understanding the camera.

This camera has amazing low light capabilities as claimed, some of the shots in this video were pushed to 64000 iso and still produced a usable image, around half of the shots were filmed in Slog-2. Say goodbye to the mushy canon dslr footage, the 1080 xacvs footage is detailed and has a good amount of wiggle room in post.
Some stills from the film
 
 

What I like is that the A7S still has almost 10 stops at ISO 6400 and is maybe the only camera with at least 10 stops at ISO 3200 in Dxo's data base.
It is starting to look to me that while maybe designed as a hybrid with a video focus, it is getting rave reviews for stills but less than that for video.
 
It is/will seemingly take a hit from many people because it may not do 15+ stops of DR except under very specific circumstances (maybe) but ignoring that it will still have a higher DR than any camera near its price at ISO 1600 and up.
 
For live music, I am seriously considering replacing my A7 with an A7S for stills and the video will be better as well and good enough for me (since it will mostly be covers that I can't show anyway).

More rumours here
 
http://www.43rumors.com/ft4-new-lx8-has-a-24-90mm-f2-0-2-8-lens/

Looking forward to watching and learning from this thread.     I know my way around for stills a bit but video is a whole new concept for me.

I think it might be that people can not really tell the difference but those who's job it is to look and use computer equipment to do so can.

I like the Zoom H1.     Tiny little thing and you can use it as a on camera mic and record into it at the same time.
 
If you don't hit record while plugged in as a mic it will still record into the camera but as Maxotics said, don't forget to hit record to have the choice..
 
I am sure there are better but for the price and size it is great.

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The more I use the a7 (for photography however) the more I like it.  I used to have perfect eye-sight.  In my late 40s I started needing reading glasses.  I can no longer look at an LCD up close without glasses.   If I try to look, back and forth, without glasses, between the LCD and what's in front of me, I get blurry eyed (and maybe a headache).  With the Sony a7 I can set the diopter and have no eye strain, going back and forth.  I believe Anyone who needs reading glasses, and uses an a7, will NEVER go back to a Canikon without an EVF.  I can't see that I ever will.  
 
The focus assist features, with the a7 and manual lenses is near perfect.  The EVF gives you a very good idea of what you're going to get in post. 
 
It's difficult to determine the fair price of something without com parables.   I believe Sony could sell a fair amount of a7s for $3,500.  There's no camera like it.  The 5d3 gets that much.  Why not?   As Ebrahim said, it makes sense in relation to their other cameras.
 
When these cameras come out, a lot of people buy them, play with them, and re-sell them back to Amazon.  Within a week you can probably get an a7s for around $2,100 with almost no wear and tear.  
 
@Michael, what camera would you use to shoot both high quality, shallow DOF photo and video in a low-light, indoor function?  If money is no object,  what camera can match what the a7s will offer?
 
Anyway, I'm with Ebrahim, though maybe a few weeks after it hits country stores ;)