JazzBox

Pretty straight forward and quick. I was thinking on holding off for a little longer, but this one manages to spike my interest. More so than the Nebula at least. There's also -10% on pre-orders on http://copter-rc.com/en/catalog/60-pilotfly-h1-microdslr-3asix-stabilizer-pre-order.html jfyi. For us Europeans... they might be opening an overseas branch office (actually, they say they are on Facebook), which means we might get to order one locally sometime 'soon'...

You are a great cinematographer! Some people is just negative because they would be creative but they are lazy and they are not ready for the sacrifices that every creative work ask.
It goes like that since Aesop's time: The Fox and the Grapes, you know what I mean

I just retweet you

Don't let them stop you! 

Here’s my story - I promoted “Lessons for a Tailor” I film I shot for Galen Summer back when Vimeo first came out.  I submitted it to tons of blogs.  That then got buzz and that was the start of my career.
Later, I helped my friend and former roommate Sean Dunne promote the film I shot for him, “The Archive” - that eventually got picked up by a hip hop blog then the big break - Gizmodo. That then led by his own submission to Sundance, then acceptance!  Then it went on PBS POV and got a Doc and News Emmy nomination!  Me and him were the perfect team of promotion!
That was then, around 2008.  The land of blogs.
Now in 2015, we have facebook and twitter and instagram and I still promote films the old fashioned way - well not so much - but I still try to email people about the film.
But I think more and more “Gatekeepers” of good online films are more immune to this than ever.  Now you need to get creative.  And of course it’s just persistence - knocking on doors, believing in your film, not caring about rejection.  It always has been and always will be.  Eventually someone will give it a chance and play the film.
Recently a lot I have taken to twitter to promote my work - most recently -”the Quiet Escape” - and overall it’s been great.  It got the film to be seen on Gothamist.
But today I got called out by a blogger.  I won’t name her name, because maybe she’s just having a bad morning but this is what she said:
Fair enough, that’s par for the course.  I did tweet to about 10 bloggers today, because I still haven’t beyond gothamist for non filmmakers to see the film, which is of course an important thing for me.  I want my film to spark a conversation on whether living in NYC is worth it or not.  That’s my goal.  To start a dialogue.
But the blogger on twitter’s reaction was so visceral it hurt me emotionally and made me stop trying to get my film out there.  And I’m sure she didn’t mean anything personal, she probably doesn’t know I’m a real person and an artist to push myself, but jeeze, I feel so bad for everyone who is just trying to get their idea or book or blog post or film out into the world and can get that kind of response..  
I remember years ago I got a direct message from someone on vimeo about their film and I was snappy about it because I thought it was just a long impersonal “hey look here” and he got upset, then I apologized, I watched it and enjoyed the film.  I felt like a douche bag.  And never again, after this one tweet from this blogger will I treat any email from a person just trying to get their 2 cents in, their viewpoint or their film, with anything but respect.
At the end of the day there is a person on the other side of that keyboard or phone.   The energy, negative or positive, must go somewhere.
And maybe in the future I send out customized twitter messages only - tailored to that blogger so they don’t think I’m spamming them. Maybe that’s my take-away.

​Ah! Good find. I was wondering about that one. That demo video that was posted a while back looked very promising. With a lot of these stabilizers there's some obvious vibe that there's a gimbal involved. Motion looks digitally corrected, it just doesn't 'flow' very well, whereas the Pilotfly had a pretty organic feel to it. Someone should do a shootout and compare some of these things head-to-head.
Anyways, for the time I'll hold off on buying one. Like you said, 700-ish... not sure. And there's bound to be more like this out there in the next months, with new features and sub 500 USD pricing. No rush here.

I'm thinking an Oly E-M5 II and my $35 Merlin-knock-off will work good (enough) for me. Will test this out next week.
Figure if I'm going to spend $1.5K for stabilization, maybe having a camera that does 80% of the work might be a better bet.
I was able to produce simple and short handheld dolly shots with the old M5 just by doing a little tai-chi body control, so I'm encouraged that the new and improved Oly 5-axis will offer capability to elegantly handle more assertive movements.
I like the idea of being able to grab steady cam level shots with small and very portable rigging...or no rigging at all.

I think you're being a bit overly critical Vesku. It does show exposure value, just not when changing ISO. But its not exactly rocket science to work out what your EV value will be as you change it.
No DSLR-like camera except for the d750 and d810 can change aperture steplessly.
I've never seen problems with the AE/AF lock. What are you talking about?
Its got plenty of button options and saving options. More than most other DSLR-like cameras.
Why are you using AF for video?
OIS is worse than other brands, but still much better than handholding. Lens stabilisation is kind of overrated anyway. Rigging the camera against your chest or shoulder generally gives a more weighty, cinematic feel.
Noise at ISO 200? Who cares really. Real film has noise at that ISO too.

That A6000 autofocus is insanely fast... that'd be great for documentary.
 
So at the moment, we know that over 60-odd FPS the GH4 softens and has more aliasing. This is in line with the FS700 as well,  probably a better option than Red Epic's sensor cropping still.
 
That audio pulsing is probably solvable by using a TRRS jack and sending the correct part to ground, so the pulsing signal doesn't oscillate the recorded sound. It probably doesn't make a huge difference, but still isn't great design, as you can't really bury it, it will always oscillate the audio recording (probably creating a harsh feel) unless it's defeated by grounding.
 
Their own mics are TRSS connectors, and I'm sure they want you buy the YAGH too.
 
A real design flaw is obsessing about 24p. why not 25p at full 4k? why no 100fps? It appears to be an artificial limitation.

The sensor readout is much faster on the GH4, by 50%. But 400% more data coming off the sensor, that isn't enough to compensate. Audio issue is a non-issue as far as I'm concerned. Who shoots video with audio in stills mode? That's what the movie mode is for!
 
AF is of no interest to me either.
 
The soft video in VFR mode, well treat it as a creative bonus tool... You could pay $15k for a camera today, and not even get 60p! (C300)

Here's a set I'm slowly collecting / modifying.
Pentax SMC Takumars:
17mm f4 24mm f3.5 35mm f2 50mm f1.4 - 7 element 50mm f1.4 - 8 element 55mm f1.8 85mm f1.8 105mm f2.8 135mm f2.5 200mm f4 I've de-clicked them, had 3d printed focus and aperture gears fitted and lightly grub screwed, shimmed them all for infinity focus with EOS adapters, and have 80mm fronts on all but the 17mm. Yes, they're a bit slow at either end, but with an A7s, plenty of fun to be had.
 

Canon FD set - very very good all round lenses and cheap
Yashica ML set  superb as good as the Zeiss C/Y just alot cheaper
Contax Zeiss set - modern lens look great colours and blacks - bloody sharp
Nikon AIS set - Killer!!
Russian set - Helios Tair Volna etc etc - character tastic
and a curve ball really good cheap set is Miranda .....yes Miranda made by Cosina - really really cheap about £15 each and very very good !!
   edit one more I forgot is Fujinon C - mount lens set - made in Japan bloody good glass - very fast and cheap - need modding to make work on Micro 4/3 but almost Distagon good.....but faster so superb in low light f1.425mm 35mm 50mm 75mm all very small and light but with Fujinons stunning glass in them .Ill remind you that Fujinon make cinema lenses - Alura etc so are very very good....195

Well, the samples speak for themselves. Seems ETTR gives you great results indeed. Interesting. Definitly need to test this for myself.

The first music video I shot on FS7 and edited on FCPX is now available to see. 
The features of the camera were to use 4k 50fps to punch in and slow down the footage at certain moments, and use the 150fps in 1080p for dramatic effect. I don't think this video shows off the resolution/colour as such - but the creative options available with higher frame rates (lacking so badly in all things Canon). 
The brief was to go with a unique, dark, grungy, imperfect and grainy look to suit the intensity of the track - this is very much an "editors" video and it might give you a headache - it's flashing all over the place!
The GH3 was used on the projection scenes. We ran out of budget. 
I have a 2nd video being edited now which is a pop track with a Maltese singer - this one is looking beautiful. It shows all the best features of the FS7. Out in 2 weeks. 
My opinion on the camera.... best camera release since I can remember. Still, the menus and buttons are crap. Can't have it all!
Watch now and protect your ears!!!
 
 

again to my eyes, It's underexposure that creates noise, not high ISOs. 
- this is my experience also! 
I have just tested two Minolta-lenses (on my 5dmk2-MLraw) with a external sekonic exposure-meter and I was very surprised by the quality of the pro res 422 Export files!
No noise and a film-like grain - with 800/1600 ISO!
Precise exposure is definitely a guarantee to avoid Noise - more than ISO Settings!
Here´s the test, but the H264 - and Vimeocompression, is a bit disappointing:).
 
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Yeah, I was gonna suggest that. Fotga makes decent filters. I had one 62mm that I used on the 14-140mm back in the day with the GH2 that works pretty okay. They go for very cheap on eBay. If you're on a bit of a budget and pick the FZ1000 over an interchangeable lens system, I already take you expect your audience not to pixel peep that much.
Because it's a variable ND, so you might run into some weird behaviour (saturation, reflections, patterns), especially stopped down close to the maximum, but otherwise, it doesn't even lose that much sharpness. Color is ok too. Gives you a bit more flexibility, on-the-go control and ease of use.

Hi JazzBox,

Great to hear you enjoyed Crete, Vamos.... that's very close to where they shot the film "Zorba the Greek"!. But I see you came around, ...yeah Elafonisi is fantastic!
I am not a native Cretan though, just taking time off to get some projects done ;-)

Thanks for your "experience-talking", in the end I ended up buying a 10€ china ND filter, variable. If it doesn't work out then it's just 10€, after your post I am even less willing to buy an expensive one.

Cheers!!

ASPECT RATIO/CROP GUIDES PLEASE! That's gotta be a super easy feature to implement. 

Still secretly hoping V2.2 will be availlable one of these days soon and feature V-LOG ( http://www.eoshd.com/comments/topic/7466-v-log-on-gh4-is-coming/ ).

V-log will be nice, but I'd really really like shutter speed/angle lock and a selection of aspect ratio crop marks.

I lost a bit of footage the other day because I didn't notice I'd changed angle - because of the tinted sellotape over the top and bottom of my screen!

Peter Buck is always a good idea
The video is 90% GH4 in 4K downscaled to 1080p in post and graded with Film Convert. Yeah stabilisation is the Gorilla pod. You have to be über discrete in East Berlin otherwise people get upset So no big cinema cameras for me!!!

I don't think so. Very few books on screenwriting actually are worth a straw. They claim to have 'discovered' the ancient receipe for drama (Aristotle) in selected examples of famous films. But their application of the structure is arbitrary, and on closer inspection the theory crumbles. Scripts that are tailored around this structure are all banal, stereotyped and boring. This short article by Paul Schrader might interest you.
What isn't true for feature films (I recently watched Godfather I-III again, and while doing so, I thought about it again), is absolute rubbish for modern mini series. What everybody just misses is that Aistotle also wrote on epic drama, which can develop it's plot lines freely.
In traditional mini series, the ending of each episode had a cliffhanger, and very often you saw through it instantly. The hero hangs from a cliff? Okay, next week someone will rescue him. Breaking Bad, True Detective, The Killing: More often than not they just present a few possible threats at the end, full stop. They don't promise a climax, never. They promise further developments. Of action. But more important: of characters. The more complicated (and often misleading) the narration becomes, the more interesting and engaging. You have to interweave conflicts and just foreshadow crises that may come. 
The future of storytelling turns back to the roots of what stories are about. Descriptions and concepts of our lifes. Not compact moral tales ...
 

Why not make a fake label for the whiskey and use similar looking alternative to the famous medicine you speak of, if it is what I am inferring it is. That way you should have nothing to worry about.

http://www.artslaw.com.au/info-sheets/info-sheet/using-brands-and-products-in-film/
 

You know what. It totally depends. Strictly speaking, you would need permission. If it's a well known brand (medicine) and you are showing it in bad light then they could object. Also depends on which country you are in and where you intend to show the short.

I filmed a short documentary in the tramway last month, we send a mail for a permission to the company, they never answered so we just went for it. We where well prepared and everything went very well, we didn't had any major problem. The crew was small which made everything easier and faster. Be prepared and scout the places you are going to shoot in, so you can solve creative and technical problems before the shoot. Just try to be discret and to always have someone watching out for the police. 

What's youtube compression got to do with permits?!