JazzBox

I'm very happy with EOSHD being about gear, it's good to specialise and to have a niche to focus on. I love the tech, always will. From my own experience, I'm just not sure how much real value can be had from online articles about the art of filmmaking, it's something you're best off learning by actually doing it rather than reading about it. NoFilmSchool built a mainstream audience that transcended the gear community by mentioning Kubrick and PT Anderson a lot in clickbate headlines - the content was ALWAYS stolen and by someone else - the aggregation of material in a massive way. Poor original content creators make nothing from exposure at all whilst the aggregators gobble up ALL the traffic and sell ads around it, in the case of NFS they even had US venture capitalists funding huge online advertising campaigns, expert SEO and very very large social media followings acquired the non-organic way, I don't even consider them as competition to EOSHD any more, they are something different and I'd never go to them for camera advice or for a singular voice. The whole site may as well be computer generated.
Despite my temporary loss of appetite for blogging and the need to get some inspiration back in my filmmaking by moving out of Berlin, EOSHD is very strong at the moment, the forum has never been busier, the cameras have never been better and the visitor numbers are still as good as ever. Don't forget, we were first or one of the very first blogs to capture the community. That's why it was such a shame that the cat man Philip Bloom stopped blogging, I really miss his longer posts outside all the social media stuff. I didn't go back to the site at all when he stopped (apart from his very occasional reviews) because his forum didn't pull me in like it does here, there's still plenty to read on EOSHD when I am away. I think the forum could go on the front page actually with the best topics in the sidebar. It's a superb resource!
The internet has changed though. People's reading habits and viewing habits are changing. Some movie trailers even now have 8 second trailers for the trailer, because of Facebook.
There is definitely a race to the bottom going on in the content world.
There's going to be some big victims too.
First one might be Twitter.... it now has such a low engagement per post because the feed is a mess and each tweet it like a grain of sand in the beach, significant stuff is so easy to miss on there, even whole conversations. Personally I won't be focussing much on that from now on. I think Twitter is going to get sidelined by a lot of people and will eventually be superseded by an alternative.
Facebook is a monster, it will continue to hoover up half the entire internet and make it worse. Already there are very active camera discussion groups on there... why people would use them over a proper forum I have no idea... it's so viral though because of the newsfeed and sharing element. The danger is that Facebook ends up siphoning off a ton of traffic from the better independent sites and selling ads around them, just like NoFilmSchool does, as the main 'go to' source for discussions and news
Philip Bloom is now much bigger on social media than he is on his blog... in fact blogs are being hoovered up by YouTube and Facebook. He has a massively high profile on Facebook and Instagram with very regular posts and I only ever update the EOSHD Facebook page when there's a new blog post - I think that needs to change. There's a ton of stuff I'm doing behind the scenes which could go on social media but I'm not enough of a narcissist to really take it to the next level
So if forums will be superseded by Facebook groups and blogs superseded by YouTube channels and Facebook and news aggregators, it will be a real loss for the internet because there won't be a motivation for anyone to create long-form original content any more or proper communities like this one, it will ALL be about 8 second trailers for trailers, gimmicks, clickbate headlines and trolling. Very sad direction for the internet in my opinion.
The thing I am most proud of over the past 5 years of EOSHD are the regular readers and the EOSHD Shooter's Guides. I get a bundle of inspiration from people and I try to put some back into the pool too.
I will get my inspiration back soon enough and EOSHD will have a bigger presence on YouTube and Facebook and Instagram.
Thanks to those in the thread who have posted messages of support! Means a lot and really does get the fire burning again.

One of the biggest issues with sharing great content is that it's much harder to do now on social media because the platforms have been monetised. You need an "advertising" budget so you can pay to boost posts that would otherwise not be seen by the majority of your followers and others. 
Alongside all the random clips of women slapping their ass, gifs, auto-play drunk people videos, cheesy meme's etc... the content you share gets over-saturated by all the other bollocks around it. Social media is SO distracting that when you are trying to find something useful, you end up going off on this great tangent where you end up watching a funny cats compilation instead. This is because we are bombarded by endless bollocks and the good content gets covered in shit. 
When I first started my video business, Facebook was a massive client stream for me. Everyone could see my content and I got bookings. I even had a weird fan club. Since the platform has become monetised... the only people that see my videos now is my mother. SEO is so over-saturated it's hardly worth bothering with on a limited budget, so I've had to reinvent my entire plan COMPLETELY just so I can adapt to this crazy online world. I have to be MUCH MORE than just a video producer. You have to be on top of everything. And most of it isn't even online - it's what you do in person. 
EOSHD has always been great place to post and read stuff. I've always had the ideas and drive to create. But I remember forcing myself to learn about as much video techie stuff as possible, and read forum posts over and over thinking "what on earth is this 10 bit 422 thing people are on about?" Second nature now.
You can evolve the platform of EOSHD for sure. I'd definitely work on your shooters guides and LUTs and make an online store or something, with relevant articles and the forum. Get different members around the globe to make a themed video using the latest mirrorless camera, with your shooters guides and LUTS... put it together as one video and promote it. Make your video community as one that works together to create stuff FOR the video community. Allow users to upload their own tips/techniques/LUTS... create an online bible of everything you need for every enthusiast camera and the best lenses/devices. Every enthusiast camera has it's own EOSHD store and user resource!! Does that make sense? 
I wouldn't be afraid of making money the commercial way from EOSHD. Fuck it. There's no harm in it. You are spending your time helping the video community and you should be rewarded financially for your hard work. No need for gear adverts. Just yourself asking for money for your material. Like you do now but on STEROIDS. 
I would also re-brand. In all due respect, I think the name EOSHD and the logo now looks rather dated. I know shitloads of logo and brand designers, if you ever feel you need it.  

How close can you get the Zoom with a capsule stuck on it to the actor's voice? I'm not super-familiar with that setup, but I'm thinking it's for ambient sound or recording concerts and such. If you're doing narrative work or interviews, you need a decent mic as close as possible to the subject. And optimally it's a mic that captures as little extraneous sound as possible. A Sure 57 2 feet from the talent is going to trump a zillion-dollar hyper across the room - much less a Rode videomic on the hot shoe. Think about getting a hyper on a stand, or a quality lav on the chest, while you're trying to shoot with a lens long enough for the look you want - usually 5 or 6 feet away for starters. Work backwards from there - what's it take to get up-close audio, with as little ambient sound as possible, into your edit? Not necessarily into your camera, but on your timeline?
There's no super-secret formula you'll find that beats a hyper mic just out of the frame. Plug that mic into a proper recording chain (balanced low impedance cables, decent preamp, decent recording medium). Stage yout gain so you get the max signal to noise with no distortion. Find a way to synch it to the camera (even FCPX has auto-synching built-in, or synch by ear). And it will synch to the built-in mic on about any DSLR - your synch track doesn't need to be amazing. Get a clapboard if you're worried.
That's it. A $1500 Schoeps mic is just icing on the cake. The basics are the basics and they work.

Nice sentiment but I am little bit confused why you think the problem revolves around money and monetizing the blog.
The reason I haven't been writing as many blog posts recently is because I'm demotivated to do so. Slapping some ads up won't change that.
The whole internet culture needs to change.
Due to the sheer amount of content out there, slung out in a rush, completely taking away any motivation for me to add to the pile, for people to ignore the long-form content in favour of all the small bitesized chunks of shit.
I haven't stopped blogging due to a lack of advertising revenue!!
Never sought it in the first place.
I am glad the forum is growing. In many ways, it's a good stand-in for the blog whilst I take a break.
Got the first GX85 article coming soon BTW
Yes I know that feeling.
I believe that guys like me and Mattias are more of the cinematographer mould than the writer-director. Our strength is our feel for mood and our eye for the aesthetics of atmosphere, so when you're more of a cinematographer than an all-out filmmaker you're in need of good content to shoot, an interesting mood to create. Sometimes you might not have that content. Also I take a lot of inspiration from shooting the world immediately around me, which is why I live in an exciting capital city, however it's not inspirational to shoot the same location again and again over 5 years, especially not when that city (Berlin) has chosen to change into an ugly homogeneous gentrified hipster hell hole since when I moved here 5 years ago, and the light has been appalling due to climate change for the past 3, rarely any interesting light, weather or sunny afternoons for huge chunks of the year.
What I need to get interested in cameras and blogging again is to take my ass out of Germany and go somewhere more interesting and more inspiring, perhaps back to Asia where I did my best work with the GH2 all those years ago.
Sadly the blogging I want to do isn't as easy as just filming cats for YouTube and raving about image quality... if it was, I'd have an article ready by the end of every single day. It doesn't interest me.
When I'm not feeling it as an artist, there's no point me blogging, it would just be shit!
Call it cinematographer's block?!

The D3 is an interference tube "shotgun" mic, regardless of what they compare it to - Aputure calls it a shotgun as well. Where did I "write it off"? My comment is that there's been a lot of fairly affordable (even cheap as hell) shotguns out there, but it's interesting we're finally seeing hypers get democratized.
ADK A-51s are under $200 and a pretty spectacular value, so I won't write it off til I hear it.
There's no "video mic" that has some magic wind-proof power - you need wind protection. A blimp has an internal shockmount, a shell that has some wind cut properties, and (the Rode for instance) comes with a "dead cat" - the fur cover. None of that will allow you to shoot in wind over 20mph or so with total quiet, but they go a long way. 
My son does some on-set audio - his blimp doesn't have a removable front cell. The Rode does - I use that indoors if there's AC we just can't shut off (big office buildings) and remove just the front - that does seem to help deaden room noise even more. In fact, I never take my mic out of the blimp and transport it that way (I have sort of a foam rubber "donut" that I stick in there to keep the shock mount cords from having to "work" in storage).
Another good trick - if your blimp is designed for shotguns, it may be hard to get a hyper all the way up to the front - so essentially you're sacrificing 2 or 3 inches of mic placement. Get one of the XLR barrel on-off switches, tape the switch to "on" and plug it onto your mic and stick the whole thing in the shockmount - basically makes your mic about 3 or 4" longer.
The Rode NTG 2 and 3 are shotgun mics. Unless all you do is shoot outdoors, I'd start with a hyper. Shotguns can really pick up a lot of room reverberance and noise - their design makes the pickup from the rear of the mic very strong, it's a problem inherent to the interference design that makes the front more directional.

For the external shots, remember to have something to fight wind. Put that in your budget! The Rode mics are great. I have a NTG3 and is great!

Anyone use this? Seems precise made and inexpencive (US $9.90 on ebay) compare to other rings. http://proactivegr.com/gears/
The gears are designed for ANY LENS diameter from 50 to 93mm! Separate gear made for each diameter of 1 mm increments! The gears are made of rigid polyurethane, that stretches a little bit, when you put the gear on. The correct form of the teeth module 0.8.  

The Samson is interesting - there's just a flood of chinese large and small di. condensers out there (with companies like ADK finding decent capsules and doing their own electronics and housings - I own an Area 51 and it's an impressive mic for the dollars) but I haven't seen a hyper myslef, especially this cheap. They're not reviewed that well by the studio guys using them on acoustic guitars and as drum overheads, but you never know...
The Aputure D3 is a shotgun, and there are plenty of affordable shotgun choices out there already.

Either an Audio-Technica AT4053b or an Audix SCX-1 HC or an Oktava MK012 (with some very heavy caveats... ! ) are basically the "standard" when it comes to indoor dialogue for low budget indies. 

But even those can not be low budget enough.....  Samson C02 seems like a viable alternative in that case. I've got one ordered which should arrive soon, which I plan to use myself. But for bigger paid jobs I'll be renting something better for sure! And hopefully in the near ish future I'll be able to afford buying an Audio-Technica AT4053b for myself. 

Also keep an eye out for the Aputure D3 which will ship soon, it is meant to be as good as a Sennheiser MKH-416, but at a heaps cheaper price than any of the others mics mentioned here so far (except the Samson of course). 
A RODE Blimp is basically essential for outdoors if you're going to have adverse conditions, ignore those who say it is no good, the v2 from RODE is greatly improved (I have it myself).

I know it may sound out of context here, but if you are really on a tight -and I mean tight- budget like I do, you could follow Curtis Judd's advice and use the Samson C02 for indoor audio. Please don't kill the messenger. :D
 

 

If you can stretch the budget, the Audix SCX-1 HC is great. We use them with the Schoeps CMC641 and they cut perfectly.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/242661-REG/Audix_SCX1_HC_SCX1_HC_Microphone.html

If you're indoors, you may have better and more natural sound with a hyper cardioid than a shotgun. Thing is, there aren't a lot of hypers out there.
A budget favorite is the Oktava, but do some research and don't get a counterfeit mic, and learn about their handling issues. The At 4053b is the best "budget" value I'm aware of - but it's six hundred bucks. But if you have a studio, they're fantastic instrument mics as well and great for live sound.
I've gotten good sound when testing a pencil condenser (I have an ADK SD) but I find the 4053 to be pretty amazing for detail and sparkle and presence - and off-axis rejection with a decent sweet spot. If you have a small di condenser, test it against the shotgun in your shooting environment. 
Go to DVXuser.com and poke around - they have one of the best audio-for-picture forums on the net.
I'm still kind of amazed that Rode or someone doesn't do a $300-range hyper - maybe because newbies think any mic used to record audio on set is a "shotgun"? (Or maybe someone does, I haven't seen one).
And an edit: looking at your links, you have two on-camera mount mics and one shotgun. I'd skip anything on-camera unless you're shooting events or just need sound to synch in post. You really want to get your mic as close to the talent as humanly possible. Unless you're shooting everyone with a 20mm and you're right in their faces, you need something off-camera.
And the Rode blimp is really a very nice piece of gear, well designed and a great value for the money.

For more DR I would consider the BMMCC...
 

My list would be shorter. I'd be like... try:
1. selling your A6300
There's just no way I'm going to put up with a camera that gives me such hassle, even if it shits rainbows.
I'd rather use a G7 and just deal with it.
Respect if you go above and beyond to make it work for you with fans 'n schtuff though.

i'm not an expert, here's the suggested minimums. http://documents.blackmagicdesign.com/DaVinciResolve/DaVinci_Resolve_12_Beta_Configuration_Guide.pdf
I have a GTX 980 ti 6GB and get realtime playback of HD RAW files until I get upwards of 5 or 6 nodes. that includes NR.

the ratio of lens to camera here is amazing.

noise is slightly improved, rolling shutter is improved. I personally prefer the micro brain form factor to the pocket's point and shoot design. adding up all the improvements, there was enough for me to make the upgrade. but that's a call each person needs to make on their own -- if the slight improvements and differences justify the expense.

From today's shoot with the Micro in bright california sun. Still amazes me how much detail is retained, especially with all that white in the frame. This is for a client so I can't leave them up indefinitely, but for now...

The C looks a little greenish on my monitor, so I thought it would be the cheaper. The A and the B are both good but the B to my eyes is slightly better on skintones.
Probably the technology of A and B is improved from the expensive but old Lite Panel. 
I'm happy to notice that, because I also have a couple of Youngnuo 600  

Yes, Aputure are probably a little better in terms of construction, but they are very close in color rendition. Lots of people hate cheap  LED panel, but I really love the simplicity of use for independent/ low budget shooting and the great look you can achieve. 

For music videos you could need it, especially if you shoot a story besides the playback.
I had the Pocket and now  have the Micro: the quality is similar, you could intercut them and none could tell which is which.
The Pocket has the monitor, so it is more easy to use without rig, the Micro has not, but the battery life is definitely better. With Pocket you need a lot of batteries to shoot for a day, because they last just 30-40 minutes.
For 500 dollars anyway the Pocket is a great buy.
 

For music videos you could need it, especially if you shoot a story besides the playback.
I had the Pocket and now  have the Micro: the quality is similar, you could intercut them and none could tell which is which.
The Pocket has the monitor, so it is more easy to use without rig, the Micro has not, but the battery life is definitely better. With Pocket you need a lot of batteries to shoot for a day, because they last just 30-40 minutes.
For 500 dollars anyway the Pocket is a great buy.
 

My Micro has arrived! Such a little beauty. My VS-2HD looks huge when mounted on the Micro 

Yes, to stop the forum turning into a spam bucket of Russian and Chinese viagra offers.

saw that last night. looks pretty good. will definitely swap my wooden camera cage out for it. keeping my eye out for it's move to "pre-order" status where you can usually get it for a 50% discount.

Ole trusty GH4. I can always count on her.

Humbled this week while I am in Nicaragua using an older camera that would never be my first choice...the GH4. I have been pleasantly surprised by the image quality once I figured out how to dial in the picture profile. Shooting on Natural with contrast, saturation, sharpness down all the way and using filmconvert to bring the image back to normal. Shooting mostly with Sigma 18-35 with speed booster on a MoVI M5. Love the long battery life. The very efficient 4k compression. The audio preamps for in camera audio. Weather sealed body. Great slow motion in camera.
My previous experiences with the GH4 SUCKED. Hated the IQ and never gave it a chance. I think once you dial in a solid workflow and picture profile...you have a killer video machine! More to come later. Ill post in this forum post. Should have a video soon.