Tim Sewell

And someone sent me a seller offer on EB today for a Jinbei 200W daylight COB for £80. Would have been churlish to refuse. I'm a little intrigued, as I have a feeling they are made by the same outfit. We will see! (Did I mention that I have something of a cheap light fetish?)

Well it took nearly a month to arrive, so I haven't had a chance to do anything with it yet. On first impressions it's very bright and not to noisy. Metal shell, which is good. Surprisingly light weight. I'll be giving it some more extensive testing in around 10 days time so I'll report back, but I'm already considering getting a second, while they're so cheap! I see that they also do a very affordable light mat.

Well this all went a bit stupid for me. After my last post in this thread I got myself a ZV-1F, the fixed focal length version, which would have been pretty ideal for my use case as I described it. To digress slightly, a friend of mine has her 30th birthday party this weekend, for which she and some other friends have formed a band - just for that one gig - and have been practising their set since August. I had offered to photograph this one-off gig for them, but they had already secured the services of her brother, a photography enthusiast, to do it. Anyway, saw her in the pub on Saturday and she asked if I could do it after all as her brother has - unsurprisingly - decided he'd rather just enjoy the evening. Fine. Except for the fact that I sold both my stills cameras in December to finance the FS7. So now I'm selling the ZV and have lashed out on a s/h A6600. Luckily I've got a bunch of stuff on eBay right now, so I can swallow the cost. I have to say, though, I'm rather liking the A6600. I know it's had a lot of knocks, not leat on this forum, for the dated sensor, RS etc; but bearing those deficiencies in mind it actually works pretty nicely. The AF (even on my adapted Canon lenses) is excellent, the IBIS is great and from the few video clips I've done it seems it will intercut with the FS7 footage just fine, despite only being 8 bit. It will also, obviously, also fulfil my needs for the festival film that first caused me to chime in on the thread. So much for a no-gear 2024!

I love Panasonic cameras, but I have a cold shard of hatred in my heart for whoever thought up the idea of releasing a camera as capable as the GX80 with terrible internal audio and no mic input.

Yes I did look at them. Either would be a very affordable option and would get over the M's relative unusability (non-articulating screen, first and foremost) for my use case in this instance. However the other downvote for a ML based solution is storage. I'll be without the ability to offload cards over a 4-5 day period, which would put something of a strain on my resources! Taking people's very helpful solutions in turn: Olympus mirrorless - possible, but a bit too 'pro' looking for the stealth required. C100 - have owned both M1 and M2 in the past. Great cams but wayyy too big, even stripped down. XC10 - have also owned in the past and liked - could be a possibility if I could find an ultra-cheap one but in the main over-budget (also to get the best 4K I'd have to buy a bunch of somewhat expensive cards). RX10 - anything newer than M2 would be outside budget - but M2 doesn't have SLog3. If I'm going to go Sony, I'd like it to be able to double up as a B cam for my FS7. G1X Mii - it's a contender, but only HD. Pana G80 - also a contender, but I think I need good AF for this project so I can concentrate on the people-centric aspects without worrying if I'm in focus. And that leaves the ZV-1. Great AF, mic input (but no headphones), great IBIS, SLog3 (with usual 8 bit caveats), Hypergammas too, so a good B-cam candidate. Super-stealthy. So my current thought is to grab one from MPB and try it out, trading in my GX80 and my 3 remaining M4/3 lenses. Unlessssss.... has anyone had their hands on the ZV-E10?

Gotta say the ZV-1 is ticking a lot of boxes.

I've been following this thread and now have a related quandary myself. This summer I'm taking my 15yr old son to the Cambridge Folk Festival - an event I used to attend yearly 'back in the day', but now only manage to visit to coincide with my decade birthdays. Anyway. Naturally my thoughts have wandered into possibly making some kind of film - it would seem a waste to go somewhere where there'll be loads of colourful, noisy and interesting stuff going on and not, TBH. Obviously I don't want to take my FS7. Even stripped down (the camera, not me) I wouldn't want to be carrying it around with me the whole time and I'll be camping, so there'll be nowhere secure for it either. Also there's a distinct possibility that the odd tipple might come my way! The obvious answer would be my GX80, but the sound - as we all know - is abysmal and there's no mic input either, so I'd have to record externally. Will I remember to start recording? Did I mention the tipple situation? I've had a play about with my EOS m and the newish crop_mood Magic Lantern build. It's an excellent build, but I'm still getting the odd bug-out and since my idea for a film includes vox pops, I just don't feel it's reliable enough. So option one is GX80 and I'll spend GBP170 on a Zoom F2 for the sound, or I trade in the GX80 for around GBP200, then spend <GBP400 on a different small, interchangeable lens camera that will give me a nice image and an audio input. Question is - what? All suggestions gratefully received.

Absolutely love her stuff.

Will do. I'm expecting it not to be that quiet, but I wouldn't expect to be using a light that powerful close to a mic anyway (hopefully).

I have a couple of mini-docs to shoot soon and really wanted to have just one light that can fight daylight. I happened to come across the ZSYB 500w COB on eBay for an astonishing GBP206! At that price it's definitely worth a punt. I'll report back once it gets here.

My mate had one of these when they first came out and, although it was pretty useless for video, the stills it produced were lovely (and way ahead of their time). Extreme jealousy ensued as the price tag (even now, s/h) was eye-watering.

Hall monitor^^

I recall that it was said to have shocking RS, although others chimed in at the time to say that that was only a show-stopper if you classed it or used it as an action cam, which despite its size, it wasn't.

Thanks @kye. As mentioned, I'm looking for silhouettes so no shadow detail is necessary, which was why I was thinking of going down the HG route. I think you're right, of course, in that I should do a test.

If I want to capture a sunrise on the beach (leaning more into silhouettes than shadow detail) does the hivemind think I should stick with SLog/CineEI or go to one of the highlight-oriented Hypergammas? This is on a FS7.

I will be 60 in 15 days 🙃

It's hipster heaven. Will look great sitting next to my wooden headphones!

Having this morning taken delivery of a used Sony FS7 at an amazing price and in amazing condition, I'm going to throw a spanner in the works and suggest that getting something like that, initially, would give you the opportunity at little cost to find out if you actually enjoy shooting with a cinema style camera. It ticks most, if not all, of your boxes (especially the FS7 II due to the locking mount which would be great for adapting to PL) yet also gives a taste of the differences between hybrid and dedicated ergonomics etc.

Good point!

The only bugbear with this is the lack of aperture control on the lens, meaning you always have to have an active adapter. Also MF is a real pain on virtually all (esp Canon) EF lenses.

My Sony Walkman from 1986 would like a word with you on that one.

Crikey. I din't know you did Liverpool weddings!

Certainly has to be considered, but 'proper' video cameras are just so much nicer to shoot with. I'm a mere hobbyist, but I just far prefer the ergos of a decent dedicated video camera. In fact I'm currently eagerly awaiting the 370hrs FS& I just magaed to pick up for GBP695 (trading in my Lumix G9)!

An increasing amount of advertising content is now shown on large, vertical screens in public spaces so, although we might find it distasteful, it's definitely a thing.

For the money, this (and the many other versions available under different brand names) can definitely do a reasonable job: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00139W0XM/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1