EduPortas

And the prices will be doing a Status Quo as well.
Unless you are in America of course.
 

I'm looking forward to it!

Cleopatra should be taken as an influence to every movie produced after it came out.
If you're studying that era of photography it's obligatory, IMO.

For a 20 second ad filled with 1 second or less shots this could work.
For a full-featured movie no. We are still a ways away from realism. The uncanny valley is brutal. And I'm talking purely about the visuals. The sound just comes through as very fake. So bad sound and mediocre visuals = AI fail.
On the bright side, it's really clear they used the movie Cleopatra (1963) for their AI teaching-learning. I actually wanted to see the old Hollywood mega production during one or two of those shots.

Thank you for your extensive reply.
I was basing my info on the official Ronin blurb, as well as both the Adorama and B&H sites. Nowhere does it say you need all these additional elements clearly to make the most out of the cheapest kit.
That's exactly the reason these gear-head forums need to exist.
It's very easy to get tangled up by a barrage of technical data without the prior knowledge.

I thought that about picking up some FX3’s and my next wedding film would look like a sequel to The Creator.
But stupidly, I stuck with my S5ii’s 😒

That's simply not true.
The focus motor is an additional $270 purchase.  The 6K version of the Ronin 4D also doesn't come able to shoot ProRes RAW or 4444 XQ.  For that, you'll need to add the ProSSD mount ($200) and a 1TB ProSSD ($800).  For most MF lenses, you'd also need to buy a mount other than the one included with the camera - I haven't seen many DJI DL mount to anything else adapters.  A Leica M mount costs $300 new.  Used prices on most of the above are about 2/3 of new cost.
The 8K version of the camera includes the mount and a ProSSD, but (if I remember right) not the motor.
And while almost none of the cameras that I mentioned include ProRes RAW (except the S1R Mark II), a majority of them are capable of shooting raw (many of them in a format that works in Resolve without conversion (additional $80 fee for Raw Convertor license if PRR).  For those that don't, you can buy a used Ninja V or Video Assist 12G for $200-500.
For stabilization, you can add a $400 gimbal - though compared with using the R4D, it will be much more of a pain in the ass.  On the other hand, most of the other cameras can support lenses weighing more than about 1000g which is about all the R4D can support if you want to use the 4th axis.
External 5" screen?  If you don't already have one sitting around, you can get one of equal or better quality to the R4D screen for about $200-300.
Any of those other cameras can also be set up in such a way that they will be small/light/unintrusive.  That's simply not possible with the R4D.  The closest you'll come is the Flex unit which costs $900 and then you'll be in a backpack ($200-300 if you buy the official PGY Tech one) and still carrying a pretty big/obtrusive camera.
The main advantage of the Ronin 4D is the integrated 4th axis which eliminates a lot of footstep motion and helps smooth things out on a car mount, etc.  In my experience, it's better than using an EasyRig with the springy arm or a ReadyRig Nimbus - and can be used with either for even more smoothness.
The second advantage of the R4D is that everything is tightly integrated.  If you get a Gimbal with subject tracking, that'll be on a separate screen and is usually driven by a second camera rather than through the camera's lens.  If you get a DJI Focus Pro or other Lidar-based manual focuser, that'll also be driven through a second camera and another screen.  With the R4D, you can draw a box around a subject and turn on AF and when you start tracking, it will do so uncannily well... about 95% of the time, and randomly lose the subject the other 5%.
It's a great single operator camera - but again, it's far from the device I'd choose as my only camera.  If I could have only one, I'd take something else for sure.  It would be my first choice for my second camera, though... hands down.

I am actually in the camp of ‘gear is great’ and love a chat about kit, but just saying that too many focus on the camera and only the camera above all else as in, “if only I had Camera X, I would make it in this industry”.
I’m all for filmmakers large and small to break away from the norms and don’t think kit should be restricted to just the most expensive stuff when some very very ‘low’ end gear has been proven to work just as well and in some cases, has made certain shots possible on the first place.
As already referenced, The Creator being shot on FX3’s and The Batman (for certain scenes) using a lens that can be purchased of eBay for under 100. 
I think the Ronin is such an example but could this show have been made without it?
Yes.
Will the way this show was shot influence others to emulate?
Probably.
Will some of them buy or rent a Ronin as a result?
Probably, but the result was not solely down to a single piece of kit.

For full frame, 6K and various flavors of ProRes that's a very very small number of cameras.
Even more so if the camera AND lens totals around US$10k (the 32mm Cooke lens used for the entire show costs US$4,500 brand-new; the 6K version of the camera US5k)

Does it exist a camera whose image technically falls apart nowadays? 😉
 

The irony being that that 80 inch TV has frame interpolation and computational image enhancement engaged on it by default.
Anyone on this forum have people in their lives that bother to adjust their "smart" tvs beyond accessing their channels?  I'm guessing not many.
Home TV sets are now literally built to destroy the original image.
And here are all of us hobbyist technicians trying to maintain the most pristine IQ.  Might be an Exercise in futility.

I agree. Chapter 3 was the best. Bar none.
But even if we don't like the story (I don't love it either), the reality is that millions of viewers swallowed the show with gusto. That does not happen if the technical image on the 80 inch TV falls apart.

I've been hearing/reading opinions that the way the story would have been perceived by the audience wouldn't have changed all that much if it featured more traditional cuts, and that the gimmick of the oner was just that, a gimmick, to show off the marvel of technology and the immense talent/coordination of the film crew. 
(The exception to this being episode 3 with the session between the psychologist and the teen. The continuous take suited that scene the best.)

This is a topic that comes up in this forum frequently.  I don't think you'll get any argument from the majority of people here that there are a number of sub-$10,000 cameras that will get you really close to Arri quality.  But for a majority of Hollywood productions, they're not reaching for this camera.  As I said in another message above, it's extremely polarizing among people who have used it.
If your use case is shooting an hour-long oner and you can run 14 takes of it to choose your favorite, it may be the best cinema camera on the market.  If you're shooting nature, it's a pretty awful camera - lidar autofocus doesn't work that far out and the focus motor can only go about an inch past the lens mount, not to mention that balancing a lens longer than 130mm or so will definitely put you over the 4th axis' weight capacity.  If your use case is putting the camera on sticks and using Arri Master Primes, it may be the absolute worst camera on the market.  I'm not even sure that they could be mounted, even using the Flex + a cage to add rods.
It's a really cool niche camera that is finding success (and will continue to find success, I think) for specific use cases in Hollywood... and in my own short films too.  But if people at Arri are losing any sleep, it's not for the DJI chicken head camera.

It's been forever since I've read up on it, but I'm pretty sure it was used because they were limited in how long they had access to locations. It was also an extremely ambitious film with a small budget. 
 
I wouldn't call using it to film an entire episode "very sparingly."
But the point I'm making is, for the better part of 25 years people have been talking about how the industry is going to change every time "attainable" cameras are used to create a notable piece of work. "It's going to disrupt the industry." It never does, though.
It's not that I disagree with your main point; most people wouldn't know the difference between something shot on a GH5 and an Alexa, assuming it's competently made. It's not like the millions of people watching the season finale of House that was filmed with a 5D Mark II noticed a difference. But that's not the reason most of the industry refuses to switch over to these more affordable, but very capable cameras. 

Thanks for the link!  I stand corrected - so that's about $25k instead of $30k by my above estimates.  That's a surprise about the 6K vs the 8K version!  I suppose that'd also be a great counter-argument to people who complain about cameras with rolling shutter speeds > 20ms.  The 6K is 22 or 24 or something like that.
Gladly!  Here are a few off the top of my head (some codecs/frame rates may vary with the 6K, mine are based on my 8K):
- Recording modes are either a mediocre H.264 or a very nice ProRes HQ or ProRes RAW.  There's nothing in-between.  The 6K has 4444 XQ available if you don't buy the raw license.  The 8K does not.
- To record in the nicer modes, you need to buy DJI's overpriced SSD ($800-1000 for 1TB), it doesn't matter if you have super fast CF Express cards.
- You can choose from 17:9 (full sensor width) or 16:9 recording modes and nothing else...  unless you go to the high frame rate mode when it will go to 2.4:1 (or something around that) and nothing else
- When the 4th axis is enabled, if you have it set to "lock" and you're standing still, sometimes it has some sort of freakout and the gimbal starts going up and down like crazy.  Numerous people have reported it on various forums, setting it to "follow" seems to result in fewer freakouts.  This seems to have been around since the start.  It definitely happens with mine.
- There are tripod mount holes on the bottom, but even a narrow Arca-Swiss plate partially blocks the 4th axis cameras/depth sensors, people have complained that this makes their 4th axis work weirdly.  I have just avoided putting a plate on it since most of my uses for it don't involve putting it on sticks
- The object tracking is really good...  most of the time.  If it loses the subject mid-take, it is difficult (and it might be impossible) to re-select it on the touch screen
- The autofocus is really good...  sometimes.  Sometimes it seems to lose the subject (even when in tracking mode) and drift to infinity.  Then it picks them up again and comes back.  It's also laggy.  This is less noticeable with wider angle lenses and when stopped down a bit, but it's clearly visible with a 75mm lens at f/4.  If I set it on a box on a shelf in my living room and walk slowly toward it, the label on the box will become unreadable until I pause for a half second and then the AF catches up - that's even with the AF sensitivity set to high.  I noticed this at first when experimenting with a tracking shot using a 90mm Summicron-M at f/2.  I bought the DJI 75/1.8 since native lenses focus faster than mechanical lenses and turned off AMF so the only motor would be the lens' focus motor.  Still visibly out of focus when approaching/retreating.  The lag when stopping is less than the manual one, but it's still there.  I stopped down to f/4 or f/5.6.  Still visibly laggy.  If I use their 17-28 and zoom to 28 and stop down to f/4, the label stays acceptably sharp - but so far, I don't see any way to use AF if you want the subject sharp while approaching/retreating.  Trying to dial in focus in those instances using the thumb wheel is too fussy for me (it's like 3mm of turning from 1.5m to 4m away, the look is similar to the AF with the subject in focus at the start and end and maybe for part of the walk).  This weekend, I'm going to experiment with a friend to see if it can do better with a person.  If not, looks like that 75 is getting sent back next week.  Professional productions probably address this with the 3 channel follow focus (add another $900).
- The first-party Sony E mount is actually made by a third party and doesn't update firmware through the body like every other part, you need to do it separately.  Many people think it doesn't work well for this reason.
- The internal microphone is completely unusable and has lots of high-pitched motor noises.  Many people say that the XLR ports on the port expander plate randomly stop working.  I think the 3.5mm input is reliable, but for a run and gun shoot, this is very limiting for audio.  For me, the internal mic has been at least been good enough to sync up audio to an external device.  Then I mute that track so I won't get a headache.  Timecode works when available, but you will need the expansion plate for that too.
I'm sure that I could add more if I spent a little more time thinking or I wrote this up after the next time I have it out on set.  If you read any discussion thread of people who have used it, you'll find that it's an extremely polarizing camera - a number of people who have used it hated it and described the whole thing as an ordeal - and the others generally loved it.  I'm more in the latter camp.

Thank you, that's great info.
They used the 6K model which costs a measly US$5,000. The 6K US$9,999 model includes a very decent T3.0 lens. Again, for Hollywood, that's less than drinks on a Friday.
There's some more technical info here ---> 
https://ymcinema.com/2025/04/16/the-heroes-of-adolescence-dji-ronin-4d-and-cooke-sp3-32mm/
We're about to see come huge changes in the industry now that hegemonic power are being shifted. The camera industry is not impervious to that huge seismic tech shift. 
 

I'd love to get a Pentax 645D or 645Z, but even at their greatly reduced secondhand prices (vs their original RRP) I still can't justify buying one for what they're going for today. (just checked out their prices again, they seem to have gone up?? Has a youtuber/influencer started talking about them again???)
Am also a little tempted to get the Nikon D200 or D2X, simply because it was "the best" CCD camera that Nikon ever got. 
But more realistically, rather than a 645D/645Z/D200/D2X, then I see the Nikon D700 as being the most likely old camera I'm possibly going to get this year or next, depending on if I can spot the right super bargain or not here in NZ. 
Yikes, their ebay pricing is through the roof! (especially so for a 2004 camera. At around two grand USD, or a little more or a little less)
 

The only camera so good, I bought it 3 times!
And then went on to the S, the T and the F.
After that, I flipped to X Pro2.
I do miss those days and it’s a scenario I have considered many many times and may go back to next year, ie, a pair of small, light bodies with a pair of primes or a single do it all such as this new Fuji which screams to me, OG X100 on steroids.
Only 3 Q’s really:
1. Is that enough lens for me? I would have preferred something a little faster and a little longer. Had it been f2 and 40mm full frame equivalent, it would be perfect for me.
2. Can I live without IBIS and/or is there any electronic stab? Probably yes because none of my cameras up to and including XT3 had it except the XH1 and that was very basic.
3. Could I justify trading pretty much my entire stills kit for this and also factor in having to buy a Fuji X camera with a longer lens for a couple of things I where even with 100mp, it would be a crop too far. Possibly yes is the answer.
Would it be a fun camera? Fuck yeah. And then some.

You cannot not include the original X100.
It's basically just a point and shoot rangefinder with a 35mm F2 lens and one usable focus point in the center. Leaf shutter, incredibly advanced flash system, great skin tones. I really enjoyed using it until the TikTok fad made it a risk for me to use it for street photography. These suckers have become absurdly expensive.
Now I'm having a blast with a tiny Nikon ccd point and shoot from about 20 years ago. 
Cheap as beans, fits everywhere, has flash, a nice wide to tele lens and the gf likes it. Of course the battery is mediocre, is very slow in operation and has glacial autofocus.
BUT once you print an image created with those ccd sensors you realize the hype is real.
I have NEVER seen skins tones as natural as the ones produced by these old Nikons (3300, 3400, etc). 
 

You cannot not include the original X100.
It's basically just a point and shoot rangefinder with a 35mm F2 lens and one usable focus point in the center. Leaf shutter, incredibly advanced flash system, great skin tones. I really enjoyed using it until the TikTok fad made it a risk for me to use it for street photography. These suckers have become absurdly expensive.
Now I'm having a blast with a tiny Nikon ccd point and shoot from about 20 years ago. 
Cheap as beans, fits everywhere, has flash, a nice wide to tele lens and the gf likes it. Of course the battery is mediocre, is very slow in operation and has glacial autofocus.
BUT once you print an image created with those ccd sensors you realize the hype is real.
I have NEVER seen skins tones as natural as the ones produced by these old Nikons (3300, 3400, etc). 
 

Hey, hey now!  No putting words in my mouth!

I think they are sisters?

Who the heck is Dave Bautista? The singer from Jane's Addiction?