j_one

I shot S5ii h265 yesterday as b-cam to the ursa mini pro, and for some shots I'm really preferring the S5ii image.
Consider the fact that the BRAW out of the S5ii bypasses most of the complaints people have with the L2 processing…if you can deal with a monitor and latency…that image is literally the best you can get for its accompanied features under $2.5k, no question.
I’d agree though, the S series first gen colors are special. It’s what makes me want to pick up an s5 or s1h sometime.

I shot S5ii h265 yesterday as b-cam to the ursa mini pro, and for some shots I'm really preferring the S5ii image.
Consider the fact that the BRAW out of the S5ii bypasses most of the complaints people have with the L2 processing…if you can deal with a monitor and latency…that image is literally the best you can get for its accompanied features under $2.5k, no question.
I’d agree though, the S series first gen colors are special. It’s what makes me want to pick up an s5 or s1h sometime.

I shot S5ii h265 yesterday as b-cam to the ursa mini pro, and for some shots I'm really preferring the S5ii image.
Consider the fact that the BRAW out of the S5ii bypasses most of the complaints people have with the L2 processing…if you can deal with a monitor and latency…that image is literally the best you can get for its accompanied features under $2.5k, no question.
I’d agree though, the S series first gen colors are special. It’s what makes me want to pick up an s5 or s1h sometime.

This conversation feels like it's about freedom, debt, and burnout. Debt traps us, stealing our freedom and leading to burnout. Sometimes, you don't even realize you're caught in this cycle until it's too late. Societal norms, the pressure to consume, and the desire to 'keep up with the Joneses' often play a bigger role than most will admit. The only way out, for some, is to simplify their lifestyle and buy back their freedom by escaping debt. I've done this myself—it was hard, but worth it.
I'm not in video creation beyond family videos, but I see parallels in education. Educators often start out wanting to make a difference, finding meaning in their work. Yet, burnout looms. Many students seem uninterested in learning or disrupt others, reflecting the challenges of our current society.
Ultimately, no job is meaningless, but life itself can feel trivial if we lose perspective. We take nothing to the grave. What endures is the relationships we build—primarily with family and friends. Occasionally, you might be remembered for something you've done or created, even if you never know it. So, enjoy your time. Treat others with respect. Honor those who came before you, and perhaps you’ll be honored in return. Reaching retirement is a gift—not everyone gets there.

Reality for me...and I guess many folks is yes, FP-L trumps it for outright image quality, but S9 beats it pretty much everywhere else from having IBIS plus tilt screen, battery life and a few other areas.
But then for me, S5II beats S9 everywhere except some features specific to S9 that may come in firmware.
Conclusion = LUMIX is for me, still the mainstream hybrid brand for pure video needs and has the least number of compromises over everyone else.
What is their compromise? Outright image quality possibly...but actually, struggling really to find one...
Another conclusion and that is LUMIX should work more closely with Sigma to create the ultimate real world hybrid!

I definitely agree that more SDR luts would be great. It would be nice if cameras could share luts with the same ease as using a new snapchat filter. Or if you could connect your camera to an ipad wirelessly and build the lut in real time using color correction software. There are so many UI/UX barriers to cameras still.
However, for narrative projects, I would never shoot anything other than a standard log profile anymore. I shoot in log on large projects because it allows a color managed workflow. If I shoot a scene one day, and then have pickups a month later, with slightly different lighting because it's cloudier--or with a different camera system altogether--log is very useful. Partly because of added dynamic range, but, more importantly, the shots are standardized to reduce the guesswork for adequately matching. I also shoot a kelvin white balance rather than balancing to a card for the same reason. Standardization is key.

The holidays haven't been the same since my Mom passed in 2016, but I am trying to make the most of them after beating cancer last year!
As far as cameras, I think I am set for 2025. I MIGHT swap out my two S5s for S5IIs, depending on how the year goes. Not that I am unhappy with my S5s, it would just make matching them with my S5II X in post easier. I also might snag a S9... we'll see! But overall I am pretty settled until I see how things look next year or in 2026, as far as Lumix goes. What I have (two S5s and a S5II X) are honestly cameras I could use until the wheels fall off and I'd be happy with them, I'm more just looking at the long term big picture as far as where I end up.
Happy holidays to all of you!

Panasonic's biggest mistake was not introducing PDAF with FF from the very beginning in 2019.  Then they could have rolled out PDAF to updated m43 bodies.  Instead we still had the GH6 introduced in 2022 without PDAF and other missteps, which required the GH7 to fix just 2 years later.  The GH6 had one of the shortest shelf life for a GH body.
The last 5 years was a great missed opportunity for Panasonic from a marketing perspective.

market shrinks > costs shared among users > higher prices

In case you are wondering how Z6 III behaves in low light I made this short clip  where I tested the camera and some of it’s functions. No plot, just random B-roll clips taken  between climbing, before or after sunset, during September and October, including labels which clip is N-RAW and which just N-Log. There’s even one S5ii V-Log clip for comparison. Darkest clips are taken with ISO 6400 and 12800 on Nikkor 85mm F1.8 or 50mm F1.2. Just mute the sound as it’s mostly sea waves splashing near a highway. 
 

The Realtime LUTs on the M43/Lumix cameras are worth it for that feature alone. Some of the ones by Nick Driftwood are amazing but I'm also having a lot of fun tweaking the image to my taste.
With the update to the Metabones to work with phase detection, it's brought new life to the Sigma 18-35 (which I had sold and now re-bought). This is for when I need to work in lowlight. Otherwise, I much prefer running around with my 15mm f1,7 , 25mm f1.4 and 42.5 f1.7 primes. So easy to carry around. I have the Sony A7iv as well but the G9ii is a much more fun camera to use.

The problem with LOG is first of all that the gamma assists are a bit rubbish.
(Aside from the Panasonic S9 and cameras where you can load on a LUT and monitor with it, without resorting to some shitty external monitor)
But on the more common and better specced cameras you can't do that...
Nikon Z9, Z8, Sony a1, a7 IV, GFX 100, Z6 III, EOS R6 II and so on.
Secondly you should never really shoot it WITHOUT a gamma assist.
Contrast, tonality and light are a really important judgement in cinematography and you can't really see any of that with a very flat display.
Sure you can toggle LOG profile on/off quick in the menu and judge... but doing so is a PITA every time you want to see the real contrast and lighting.
The gamma assists are all quite bland looking and flat with not very much pop, I find.
Then we come to the LOG profiles themselves...
EOS R6 Mark II / R5 / R3 all have C-LOG3, which a lot of people complain about but I don't mind. One of the better ones and easier to grade. C-LOG2 is reserved for the Cinema EOS line. C-LOG3 is closer to the original C-LOG on the 1D C, I seem to remember.
Sony a7 IV has S-LOG2 and S-LOG3, they offer the widest dynamic range of the bunch but you still have to get exposure perfect for optimal image quality. Gets noisy really fast if you under expose.
N-LOG on the Nikon cameras needs the most colour correction, otherwise you have very green-olive skin.
By the way, there is a very small difference in image quality between 50Mbit/s 10bit 420 H265 on the Sony a7 IV and the higher bitrate LOG formats in range of 200-500Mbit... yes even in S-LOG3!
So you can save a lot of money and card space there.
With standard gamma picture profiles you don't need to shoot 10bit... 8bit will look the same.
People tend to overestimate higher numbers on the specs sheet.
So those tips in summary:
Don't shoot from a flat image off the back screen Nail exposure to get the maximum dynamic range benefit from LOG With modern codecs like H.265 in 4K/24p - don't bother with the higher bitrates in most cases, the laws of diminishing returns apply big time (Although if you're shooting 8K or high frame rates then 200-500Mbit/s is recommended) C-LOG3 is easiest to handle, with N-LOG last Hope that in-camera LUTs/monitoring becomes a common thing, it's really bad that it isn't even 12 years since LOG first came on the mirrorless camera scene.

Okay. I heard some early reports of compatibility/profile issues for the Sidus One with non-aputure fixtures, and I have CRMX lights from Godox and Astera too. I've been eyeing Sidus one since Aputure support is strong. Most affordable option is Godox TRX Timolink but I dunno how it will play with non-Godox lights AND outside the Knowled app, let alone reliability/range as a transmitter. I may just play it safe with the Moonlite...if you have any more thoughts do let me know!!
Anyway my favorite aspect of these sales is how vendors push down the prices of used units accordingly. Happy shopping everyone!

I'm not yet, but I don't want to have multiple apps for my lights on set so I mostly buy Aputure/Amaran.  I'm interested in being able to integrate some other vendors, though, without having to constantly reconnect all day.  Since I have some Aputure gear that only supports Sidus link, Sidus One seems like a good path forward to getting lights from other vendors (among other things, while I like my B7C's, there have been two occasions when they wouldn't fit in a light fixture - Astera makes some that would have fit).

Pinned topic, keep it going 🙂 The internet how it should be.

Based on focal length alone, I'd rather have 18-40. No idea about optical quality, but I've often found 28mm to be too long for landscapes, and it's pretty easy to crop if I need a 50mm FOV.
However I'm also going to make a guess that the R8 is more comfortable to hold. I don't particularly like the grip shape on the S5 series. I miss handling the NX1.

Neither cinema and photography are well suited to a small screen and even smaller attention spans, they are supposed to be viewed on a large canvas and in a socially interactive way like in a gallery or theatre. Now with stuff like streaming, this works fine when everyone has a subscription to one or two of the same platforms like Netflix and are stuck at home with nothing better to do like during covid, but after a while there is a total oversupply of stuff to watch, and a total ADHD mess of an audience who is getting constantly distracted by social media content in direct competition to the long form stuff.
 
High quality displays are now higher quality and more affordable than ever, so it's easy to view video content in high quality and on a fairly large surface - people aren't limited to viewing on smartphones if they make the time to sit down for a bit. For it to be a socially interactive viewing experience, that really requires people to gather in the same place at the same time, and that probably requires a scarcity of content. If content is viewable at any time anywhere, then people don't bother to join others to watch it. There used to be a huge scarcity of content and people would sometimes struggle to find things to do on their free time, and this lead to (in-person) social activities being more relevant a part of life than today where one can just entertain oneself at any time with a mobile phone. This state of affairs leads to people not being able to focus on what they should be doing and also it seems to be leading to significantly reduced birth rates in the developed world. So, will a humankind which is too connected to each other lead it to extinction, or will there be a corrective move? Probably fewer humans would be better for the planet's ecosystems, but then this would also likely mean the current level of technology (or technology development) is difficult to sustain because (in the future) there is not enough volume to pay for the costs.

Confirmed: So it's S5D, S9 firmware, and S5ii/x firmware.

...Tired of waiting. Literally just want the S1H and S1R with some refresh features from the s5ii. I've been thinking of going full nikon Z + sony E for the system I grow into.

I think Lumix is damned if they do, damned if they don't. I think we only have to look back to the GH6 to see why they may be holding back. Just months after releasing it they then released the G9 II with PDAF. Within a year they'd go on to release a GH7 with PDAF. With hindsight it feels as though the GH6 was rushed out.
I think Panasonic might be in a similar situation with their higher end offerings.
I hope that Lumix works towards improving their marketing and becoming more transparent with the photo/video community. When you're that far behind the other companies there really isn't a reason not to be. Even if you cannot be specific, letting it be known that you're not abandoning higher end users would probably help. 

No, I do not agree.
Regardless of what is said between the alps, it is a fact that they have not renewed their flagship FF models for more than 5 years. And it doesn't matter that the ones we have are very good. That's the market, baby! That's the rules, right or wrong, and if Pana doesn't follow them they get written off.
Unless Lumix is a secret cult or has a history like Leica.
No, it doesn't have both.
In the next few weeks Sony will make a big announcement. By the time (perhaps) Pana unveils these damn S1M2s, its direct competitors will have completed two iterations of their models.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we should follow trends but let's connect the dots: if Pana wants to be in the market and have access to the latest technology in sensors and microchips they have to have the minimum numbers. Having the sufficient numbers is not just to make money but mainly to be able to afford to have a custom sensor designed or access to fewer nanometer (advanced) chips. Otherwise they are cut off.
And when the numbers are what we were quoting just few post before, they are on the edge of extinction. 
Imagine that in 2025 Pana sells 260K cameras while retaining 2023 numbers. How many will be S1HIIs? I mena with a new sensor? That is, how many custom sensors can you ask a supplier for? Maybe too few and you have to choose from the catalog.

It is fun fun fun times, both my main career (filmmaking) and my backup / previous career (i.e. the CS/IT world) are going through very rough patches right now. 
Want to go back to how it was a couple of years ago when I could be working 100hr weeks if I wished (& I did!). 

So I went with the A7R III of course 🙂
The reasoning goes like this... It was 1160 euros, and the A7 IV would have been 1750. Quite a big difference.
The A7R III is a 2018 camera, and in those first EOSHD reviews it remember feeling it was a big step up from the already very good A7R II, because Sony had introduced new ergonomics, new battery, new colour science... And now they have done so again 6 years later, and the a7 IV of course has completely new Creative Styles and menus... plus 10bit and S-Cinetone, which you'd think I would consider a must-have. Thing is I don't. The new menus aren't a selling point, they're a bit of a mess. The new colour profiles are pretty decent, but I am more used to maximising what you can get out of the old ones with EOSHD Pro Color. And the A7r III when set up right has some serious mojo... Maybe a bit of a harsher highlight roll off than the A7 iv, and it doesn't grade as well in S-LOG3, but there is a part of me that doesn't care and just wants to shoot.
I tested both side by side for about an hour in the shop, sat down around a table... The a7r III autofocus was as good as I remember it... Can't really see any major improvement on the a7 IV. I tried the Clear Image zoom for Super 16mm c-mount lenses and the Super 35mm mode on the a7r III and again there was no shortcoming, and no clear advantage for the a7 IV. That's quite an important feature for me as I like the look of my c-mount stuff.
When it comes to 10bit and more dynamic range I have the GFX 100 and S1H. When I need really good AF in video mode and stills - the a7r III does the job admirably. My a7r III will be mainly for personal stuff, stills and video - with emphasis actually more on stills whereas the S1H takes up some video duties.
The video mode on the a7r III really is no slouch... I find the image really very nice in 4K full frame and S35. It also has 1080/120fps which is a nice bonus for such an aging model.
The a7r III also has a small edge over the a7 IV in low light, in both video and stills, even thought it has a higher megapixel count (42 vs 33) and is 6 years older... quite surprising.
Ergonomics wise, the a7r III is smaller, slimmer, and has an equally good EVF - you don't notice the higher res panel in the A7 IV very much as the resolution of the live-view feed doesn't quite make use of it.
So I feel good about saving the 500-600, and will one day get back into the modern Sony cameras... but for now the a7r iii does the job perfectly fine. I'd like to get an a1 again one day... When it comes down under 2.5k then I will strike. It's hard to see how they will ever better it, without a complete change in concept and technology.
By the way, I really do prefer the tilt screen on the a7r III over the social media friendly twizzle screens of late. The a7 IV just didn't feel as good to shoot with somehow, when the screen is opened up at the side off axis.
There's also no advantage in RAW quality for stills.
I appreciate the image in video mode is that bit better... A bit more dynamic range in the creative styles, a better codec, and S-Cinetone is nice to have as well.
So a pure videographer's needs may differ and that extra 600 might be worth spending.
Let's see if I regret the decision by this time next week 🙂

Not clickbait, despite sounding like it.   I'd say that it threw a spanner in the works, but it was more like a hand-grenade.
I went to South Korea on holiday, and despite having a mostly-sorted setup based on GX85, I took the BMMCC and ended up shooting almost the whole trip on it.
The rig


The rig consists of:
OG BMMCC - the 1080p one from almost a decade ago 12-35mm F2.8 lens IR/UV cut filter cheap vND filter (tried to buy a new one there but retail shops didn't stock what I wanted) Ikan 3.5" monitor Smallrig monitor mount (tilts forwards) curly HDMI cable from amazon (really tidies the rig up) 3 x LP-E6 batteries (two are older Wasabi ones and one was genuine a Canon one I bought there) Peak Design arca-swiss (mounted on the bottom) random wrist strap (looped through the arca-swiss plate Sandisk 128Gb SD card This ended up being a killer setup.  A few highlights of the rigs performance are...
Professional equipment
The BMMCC is a cinema camera with fans and designed to shoot in harsh environments.  The 12-35 is a professional lens.  No BS overheating snowflake influencer crap here.  This gave me confidence to use it in (light) rain, heavy humidity and serious sweatiness, and basically to not baby it.
Fixed aperture zoom lens
When setting up for a shot the vND setting from the last shot is probably in the ballpark for this current shot, even when going straight from a one end of the zoom range to the other.
Flexible zoom range
The zoom range was from 30mm to about 100mm.  Sometimes it wasn't quite as wide as I'd have liked, but it suited the environment as Seoul, with a population of around 10M people, is one of the worlds megacities and is seriously compact, so most compositions would simply contain too much stuff if they had a wider FOV.  You always miss shots when travelling, but I felt like I didn't miss that many.
OIS on a cinema camera, even at the wide end
Not a lot of OIS options for 12mm lenses outside of zoom lenses.
Light weight
This is a full cinema camera rig with 12 items, and yet weighs about 850g / 1.9lb.  My GH5 weighs 750g / 1.65lb with battery and SD card, BUT NO LENS.
Dynamic range
No choosing between the sky or shadows.  When shooting uncontrolled situations like this you often see things in post that you didn't see while you were shooting, so the flexibility is super-useful.
Ok, so that's all lovely and all, but what was so transformative about it?  These are things you could probably work out from the specs...
 
Grenade #1: Shooting slowly is (mostly) shooting honestly.
It's a cinema camera, so it's slow as f to shoot with.  Yes, I know that practice makes you faster, but my phone will expose and focus in the blink of an eye, so comparatively it's far slower.  
So, you see a composition and you stand in the right place.  Then you adjust the monitor angle if not shooting from the hip (as I prefer).  Then you adjust the ND to expose.  Then you adjust the zoom for the composition.  Then you adjust the focus.  With this kind of setup you have to rely on peaking, so you adjust it back and forth to see how much peaking is the maximum, then zero in on that.  Then you hit record.
This means several things:
You are immediately obvious when you stop and start fiddling with a camera in public.  There's no hiding.  People aren't stupid, especially these days. You cannot be this obvious without getting comfortable with it.  If you don't learn to be comfortable then you'll mentally implode before getting any shots, forcing you to relax and just play that role. By the time that you actually hit record, most of the people who were staring at you will have gotten bored and gone back to what they were doing.  They don't know you hit record, so the shot will contain people who aren't suddenly paying attention to you. This was a revelation for me because it forces a different way of shooting.
When you have a fast camera, you can act like a street photographer.  You watch the people, you see something about to happen, you quickly point the camera, and capture THE DECISIVE MOMENT.  This means you are shooting specific people doing specific things.  Good freaking luck doing that with a fully-manual cine camera.
When you have a slow camera, you probably can't anticipate moments far enough in advance to be ready in time, so you think differently.  You find a composition and shoot it, and anonymous people drift in and out of frame in ways you didn't specifically anticipate.  Sure, you can frame up a background and then wait for people to walk through it, and you could even see someone interesting a few hundred meters away and be ready when they walk past, but it's still a good distance from seeing something 2s before it happens and grabbing it.
This has a massive caveat though.  It's not a good way to shoot people you know, unless you're directing them or they're basically stationary.
The way I've come to understand the difference between cinema cameras and video cameras is that video cameras are designed to capture the world as it happens, and cinema cameras expect the world to bend around them.  There's lots of overlap now with that line blurring, but the concept is still a useful one, and the cameras with the best image quality still tend to be very self-centred.
 
Grendade #2: Fixed WB is awesome.
I used to shoot auto-WB because I used to think that you wanted 'correct' WB.  This mostly works, but leaves you with tiny WB 'errors' that change during the shot.  I used to think that the alternative was a fixed WB that would either be correct (if you took a manual grey-card reading at every location or whenever the lighting changed) or you'd use a fixed WB and then have to change it in post.
This is probably still true if you're doing something where the WB has to be 'correct', but the only situations I can think of where this would apply is for professional work.
I shot the whole trip on 5600K.
So, why wasn't this a 'problem' creating shots with 'wrong' WB?
Well, shots with warm light sources look warm:


Shots with cool light sources (like a blue sky) look cool:


Shots taken on a 'grey old day' look grey:

... and light sources that aren't on the warm/cool line will show as being coloured but don't look wrong - they just sort of look like that's what they looked like:


and sometimes can even look beautiful:



More to come, too many images to attach!

I had a chance to test this, it does look like the extra green shadow noise introduced by the new autofocus is somewhat reduced by shooting at the higher base ISO 4000 if the situation allows for it. So shooting with an ND could work.

B&H and Adorama are my most trusted vendors for used stuff. Fun thing about Adorama is that almost all their used stuff on their site is also listed in their eBay store with a “Make offer” option so you’re able to buy things under list price. They’re pretty good about actually accepting offers, too. 

I’ve had very good luck buying and selling with MPB in the past, but you need to reallyyyy stress test stuff from them IMO. I’ve returned a couple items that I didn’t feel were listed correctly. Like, things I bought at “Excellent” that I would characterize as “Poor” or “Acceptable”. Still, there are some great deals there.