meanwhile

@jonpais You must have some idea what it is that you want to shoot... sports? weddings? nature and wildlife? food? Honestly, no. I learn stuff for the sake of learning then see what happens. anyhow, it sounds like you're spending a lot of time reading.. I wish. How can I? I can't find decent web resources and haven't found a decent book yet. All the above is a combination of what should be obvious to any competent stills shooter combined, as I said, with memories of a couple of conversations from years ago. I would strongly advise hacking the camera for Cinelike D, it's a much nicer profile than Natural IMO. VERY useful - thanks! Unfortunately, if you plan on manually focusing, the lenses you're intending to use are far from ideal. You'd be better off picking up some inexpensive cine lenses from Samyang/Rokinon if you plan on using a follow focus. That's the fly by wire focus? I'm sure they'd work better, but compared to just buying a few filters and a shoulder gizmo, buying an extra set of lenses doesn't seem that inexpensive - I want the Panny and Oly lenses any way for stills, and each Samyang will cost me as much as the GX80 body. So I'll have to find a way of working around this. I've an Takumar 55mm around. For a shorter fl, given this is just practice, I could use a CCTV lens??? Anyway - thanks for flagging that problem for me!

And for getting consistent exposures I plan on carrying a grey card and using the camera's spot meter before I shoot. I suppose I should shoot a colour chart too?

@jonpais At this stage I'm just building basic skills. I'll look for appropriate targets for each skill. It might be worth adding that I'm in the NW UK - so low light levels and poor contrast are normall for me. Otoh, the light does tend to be soft...

I've picked up a GX80 and want to build some skills. But whenever I try to google for information on starting video I hit a wall of people trying to tell what camera to buy so they'll get Amazon affiliate revenue. I bought "How to make video that doesn't suck" but, frankly, the book sucks. So this is what I've worked out from memories with conversations with people who - presented for correction and other advice - I should shoot manual focus - I should shoot with off-camera sound and synch with a clapperboard or even just a clap - I should shoot in manual video mode with the shutter set so that it is open at least half the time? Or is it a minimum of half the time? The idea being to get frames to blur into each other - If I have to alter exposure during a take I should use a variable ND - Getting things right in camera matters more than for stills and I should shoot with a flat profile (Natural, NR and Sharpness pushed all the way down?) - I should shoot in 4K then downsize later for the supersampling - Try desperately hard to avoid mixing light ??? Questions - Best way to hold the camera for manual focus? I was thinking of adding a shoulder brace - Best cheap lighting options? - Anything else I should buy other than a variable ND? I was wondering about Tiffen Satins? - I'm planning on keeping the 12-32mm kit zoom and adding a Panny 20mm and an Oly 45mm - Books or websites with advice??? Thanks!

...And the other factor that influenced me: rolling shutter is likely to be a LOT less of a problem. The larger the sensor, the longer (all things being equal, which is a reasonable assumption here, especially given the top end of shutter speed for each camera) the transit time for the shutter window across the sensor and the more easily that your shot will become jello flavoured. So far, I'm definitely but cautiously pleased with what I'm seeing from my tests with the LX7 in this area. There really is a lot more to camera choice than sensor size - and sometimes, when you don't need the advantages it can bring, sensor size may impose handicaps.

Having used both cameras at a little, I think a lot of the above makes two classic mistakes - too much attention to a single easily measured characteristic, in this case sensor size, which you use to make overly definite statements about two cameras one of which you haven't used. because when you look away from that single stat and at the two cameras in real use, there are several factors that even things up in the LX7's favour. I.e. - The LX7 has a jaw-dropping, I-can't-believe-this-isn't-a-Canon-L-Series, A+ lens. In fact, looking at stills, I honestly believe that a series of primes couldn't do a noticeably better job. But the Sony's lens, well, it's is a fuzzy-cornered B. - The LX7 lens goes down to 24mm; the Sony's 28mm is nowhere as useful in interiors or for getting dramatic perspective effects. And to get even that wide you have to switch off stabilization - otherwise the Sony barely goes wider than 35mm equivalent. 24 vs 35mm is a huuuuge difference. My own limited epxerience - which seems confirmed by the few comparison videos I can find - suggests that the LX7 stabilization and autofocus are more robust (I found the manual focus on the Sony to be too annoying/difficult to use because I couldn't get focus peaking to work in video mode - was this me or the camera?) As for blown LX7 highights in sample videos, when people have agreed that they can't find ones shot "professionally".... this doesn't really say much about the results someone who knows what they are doing will get. Camera exposure and white balance systems are stupid and getting a good exposure is hard, which is why it is the subject of entire books. The Sony's sensor size should be an advantage, but only if the entire scanning chain is equal in every other way. If you look at empirical measurements of DR (which I could ony find for jpgs but which should be indicative) then the cameras run evenly until 1600 iso: http://www.techradar.com/reviews/cameras-and-camcorders/cameras/compact-cameras/panasonic-lx7-1089288/review/5 Neither camera is perfect. Both are amazing in some ways but severely limited on others - you have to *carefully* consider which limitations matter most to the work you want to do. For example, if I had to shoot in interiors like this then I'd regret giving up the RX100's (limited but valuable potential) for dof effects, but I'd do it in a heartbeat (which is what I did.) Better DR over 1600 iso I didn't give a thought too, because I don't need it - ymmv.