Tim Sewell

Another day out learning to use my FS700. First one I've felt even slightly like posting. I missed critical focus at a coupe of points, and Vimeo's borked the movement a bit (although re-uploading as ProRes 422 helped with that), but I'm quite pleased with it, visually.

It's easy to forget sometimes that we're still only living through the very dawn of computing and digital technology. Just like a caveman with a flintlock, our great grandchildren will take things for granted that would seem like magic to us now.

I may be talking out of my ass here, but I have had the feeling for a while that what a lot of creators are striving for isn't so much a 'film' look, as an Alexa look, given its ubiquity in film and TV these days (and there's nothing intrinsically wrong with that - it's a lovely look!).

Is it me, or is the motion cadence on that demo reel absolutely horrible?

It shouldn't come as too much of a surprise. At a time in history when we have pretty much unlimited access to all the world's culture and history people are becoming less and less curious, preferring to spend their time in curated echo chambers. I'm 52. When I was a kid (here in the UK) there was very limited kids' TV. Even in the long summer holidays, kids' stuff was limited to the morning. So if I found myself allowed to watch TV on a rainy afternoon it was mostly old B&W movies I was watching. There were far fewer books aimed at kids or teenagers, so I went through my mum's bookcases and read everything from Dickens to Len Deighton (how many parents even have bookcases containing anything other than cookbooks and celebrity memoirs now?). So I imbibed from a huge range of culture that spanned decades at least, if not centuries - as did a lot of my peers. Compare to now, where children have multiple channels devoted to giving them exactly what they want, as a means of advertising to them - no need ever to watch anything outside the comfort zone. Countless 'child-friendly' books - all variations on the same themes - all easy to digest; no need to explore the library or pick a book of the bookshelf to counter rainy-day boredom. Dumbing down is a fashionable phrase, but that doesn't make it any less real. A dumbed down audience is a lot easier to sell to and to make money out of so, as I say, it really shouldn't come as too much of a surprise. BTW, Trump isn't a solution to our dumbed down culture - he's a product of it.

I'm still working on mastering my secondhand FS700 - I'll be holding off any purchases! (Full disclosure: I don't have to make my living out of it)

You're welcome. I've got the Amaran M9 and it's more use as a bedside light than anything else. These Lumecubes punch considerably above their weight.

1500 lumens do ya? https://www.lumecube.com/

Cinetape

I bought the Shogun Flame as high speed raw, for me, was a 'nice to have' rather than a necessity. The situation is thus (on the Flame): 4K raw to ProRes/DNx** via SDI 2K raw also You can also record HFR using the end trigger on the FS700 and output over HDMI to the Shogun to get 8bit 4:2:2 to ProRes etc. The inferno supposedly offers 4K raw to ProRes etc at up to 60fps as well as raw to CDNG.

It was very pleasant to watch and while I was watching it I didn't particularly think about the brand name of the camera used nor the dynamic range presented. So, for me, as a piece of art - it succeeds.

That's fucking beautiful man.

I got one of those Amarans - they chuck out an impressive amount of light for the size and price. These (http://aladdin-lights.com/eye-lite-dt/) also look fantastic at around the GBP80 mark! I've spent this month's gear money on 3 Ianiro redheads and an Arri 300 fresnel, but next month a couple of these might be on the list!

I spent a fruitless hour reading through those writing prompts yesterday. Unfortunately 99.9% of the ideas presented were exactly what one might expect from guys who spend too much time on the internet. A lot of time travel fantasies going on there. I'll give it another few hours though - maybe find some diamonds in the rough.

I've got around £5k to invest next year in starting (in a small way) a camera hire business and within my budget I could go for either a C100 mk 2 or a second hand C300 mk 1. I already have a reasonable amount of Canon glass, a BMD video assist and a Ninja 2. Which camera body do the denizens of EOSHD would yield me the better return in terms of hires? Thanks for any help anyone can give me on this - I'm truly conflicted.

​Yes. Still pretty easy to accidentally jog it in the heat of the moment - may have to resort to gaffer tape!

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!