mercer

Let's be honest here, though. How many current Panasonic S series shooters are excited about going back to m4/3 and its' lenses/crop?

Show of hands?

At the risk of sounding contradictory, with further thought, I find the GH7 release to be a bit... cynical... for lack of a better word. In less than a year, the S2H will be released with similar and/or better features. Is Panasonic just trying to get one last bit out of m4/3 and the unsold GH6 parts before  they discontinue the entire m4/3 division?

Wasn't there a rumor that they were getting out of the camera business?

With the recent, although utterly stupid and repugnant, GeraldUndone "controversy" (nonsense) doesn't this release seem a bit odd... borderline full-stop weird?

When you add the, out of left field, LogC aspect, is it possible that Panasonic is purchasing Arri like Nikon purchased Red and Panasonic is cleaning shop to release an entirely new division/lineup of cameras?

With all that said, I'd really like to see Panasonic go full on weird and release a S16 c-mount camera with IBIS... go the other way and do something really ballsy!

Although I appreciate the snark of this post, there's no evidence that a 4K image makes your film more Oscar worthy than a 2K image... so...

I will be curious to see where the GH series goes from here. This seems like an apex for m4/3. You can only assume that the GH8 will be GH8K, and I'd love to see a GHX eventually, but I'm not sure it will have the legs to last that long. I can only imagine that the YT twits are already planning their future, September videos stating... "Why I'm selling my GH7..."

But once again, the problem with the GH series of cameras and flagship m4/3 cameras, in general, is the cost. Although $2200 is a reasonable price for the features you're getting, for me, it only makes sense if you're going all in and getting the 32bit audio unit and the LogC key... at that point... after you add a lens or two, you're looking at 3-4 grand... and then you're in R5C, Z8 territory... but then if you go that route and get lenses for those systems, you're in C70 or Komodo territory. It's a never ending game of upselling that I just can't justify for a hobby.

Also the Arri LogC curve and color science is considered the best in the industry. One of the biggest selling points for Resolve is the ability to "mimic" LogC via a Color Space Transform, so now that you can get that in camera with the GH7 with IBIS, and usable AF... working natively in FCPX via ProRes or ProRes Raw, is a pretty big deal.

The GH7 is THE camera I never knew I always wanted and probably won't get. Maybe.

The new DR Boost sounds like a better implementation. Hopefully, they fixed the chroma noise that plagued the GH6's DR Boost mode. I preferred the GH6 over the S5iiX, but the chroma noise was a deal breaker for me. I have to deal with it on my 5D3/ML Raw, no reason to mess with it on a modern camera if the shadows in bright daylight are riddled with it.

6 minutes ago, eatstoomuchjam said:

You're saying it like it's a bad thing, but people really like the G9 II.  Putting its guts in a pro body, enabling internal raw, and charging only $300 more for it (judging by leaks) sounds pretty great to me.

Exactly. And then they add 32bit float internal audio... even with the added cost, it's a game changer for the one man band filmmaker.

That said, I'm probably not a customer. I've use the GH5, had the GH6 briefly and briefly had access to an S5iiX and I'm just not a Panasonic guy. 

You gotta give it to Panasonic though, they took an entire market of loyal m4/3 users and halted any and all discussions about the full frame "myth" and made them loyal full frame shooters. And then when you think m4/3 is all but dead and buried... they flip the script and instead of releasing an S2H... they release the apex of m4/3 cameras.

I guess they learned from their mistake of sitting on the GH6 release for so long. Release m4/3 first and then full frame a year later...

Us dopes will buy both. 

I didn't see full frame on the rumored specs???

1 hour ago, PannySVHS said:

Awesome! Are you allowed to share one or the other? @mercer pointed out Pete Ohs. The cool thing is that one of his movies is available on youtube. A big channel has it up for watching. It's even free of charge.

I still havent gotten my Canons ready for ML but I imagine them to be great fun. Is battery life much better on the 5D2/3 ML than on an og Bmpcc? Yesterday I lost some beautiful shots when reached the end of each of my batteries. That definately bugs me, being on 30% and camera stopping the recording. Sometimes it recorded flawessly when being much lower like 10%. The battery status was jumping back and forth as well, even from around ten to 70% when I put it back into the camera.

Yeah you can get over an hour on the 5D3 with one battery. 

On 5/25/2024 at 3:58 AM, BTM_Pix said:

Discussing them is all I’ll be doing as, unfortunately, I’m just too washed up to be using them anymore.

Hope you're not feeling ill?!

On 5/25/2024 at 3:58 AM, BTM_Pix said:

Oddly enough, there is exactly the same type of WW2 re-enactment event taking place on Monday (which is a Bank Holiday so guaranteed flat lighting ) at a heritage railway 20 mins from where I’ll be.

I can’t even be arsed going to watch it let alone taking a camera and filming it.

I know how that feels, they have a classic car show about two blocks away from me once a year... why couldn't it be one block?

On 5/25/2024 at 3:58 AM, BTM_Pix said:

On the topic of your endearing love for the 5D3, I think it’s quite common for people to still have the strongest affiliation to the first camera that offered the “great leap forward” for them in terms of their image making.

That’s why there is still so much love for cameras such as the BMPCC and the GH2.

Possibly also because they all represent peak enthusiasm before the gear ridden descent into being so jaded 😂

Probably the truest statement I read all week.

On 5/27/2024 at 1:01 PM, Andrew Reid said:

This has replaced the Vimeo tests of old where you had a filmmaker and model, or perhaps a videographer and a duck in the pond.

Thanks, that all makes sense, but man do I miss those Vimeo days... I can tell more from an image of a duck in a pond way more than this sanitized, raised midtones, carbon copy footage that circulates through YouTube.

5 hours ago, QuickHitRecord said:

To play devil's advocate (because that's what we do around here!), it's never been easier or more economical to plug a camera into a v-mount battery, which can also power a monitor. If you are using manual lenses, your shooting experience will probably not be that different regardless of the camera body that you use... so you might as well use one that captures an interesting image, right?

Also, my M2 Mac really takes the sting out of MLV app. Sure, it adds 20-30 mins of export time, but it also means that I can dial in the color balance and exposure of each shot before I even start editing.

Not saying that this is the right way to go for everyone. For me, I like the idea of a camera that has a slight IQ pitfall to take away the pressure of capturing a perfect image, and to add a little gentle pressure to tell a compelling story so that the audience doesn't study your image too much.

No reason to play the Devil's Advocate, the 5Diii/ML Raw is one of the best images I have seen for the money... especially if you aren't too concerned with playing the resolution game. Is it perfect? No. Is the workflow a little tedious? Sure. But man those files!

I didn't post my camera choice just to be forced to defend it. With that said... please tell me another camera that has 14bit full frame, uncompressed raw video for less than $1000? Please I'd love to see that camera?

As far as the Sigma FP being a better camera... I've had the 5D for about 7 years and the FP for about 1.5 and I'm sorry to tell you... the FP is not a better image... unless all you care about is getting sharpness via resolution. And this is coming from someone that truly likes the Sigma FP. I will say that I do agree that the FP is a weird successor of the 5Diii/ML Raw, in fact, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Sigma got inspiration from that camera and firmware.

As is, the similarities make the cameras a bit too redundant for me, so after a lot of testing and consideration, I am keeping the 5Diii and selling the FP. I don't really need 4K and I have access to an S5iiX if I do... weirdly I find the ProResHQ out of the S5iiX to be damn near close in quality to the FP.

What boggles my mind is how on earth a couple of minutes a day with a camera for a couple days on a trip is going to give enough insight into how well the camera works under normal circumstances? It sounds like a bunch of smoke and mirrors that the camera manufacturers and the YouTube personalities engage in to give the hopped up consumer. Obviously, it works. Do they get loaner cameras too to help with the reviews? Do the marketing folks "coach" you at these retreats by repeating catch phrases or some other subliminal techniques to push the "reviewer" towards a positive review? Or do they bank on the innate notion that it is harder to be critical when someone has been so nice. It reminds me of the South Park episode when some Asian country was trying to take over South Park by telling them how much bigger American penises are compared to Asian ones. 

Have been messing around with a friend's XA50 and love the AF, cLog3 and above all... the form factor. The process becomes solely about composition and storytelling. Anyway here's a frame I grabbed after shooting with it for about 2 minutes...

To add... anytime gear becomes the center of discussion, there always ends up being flame wars. This camera is better than that camera. The features on my camera beats the features on your camera. My dick is bigger than yours. Blah, blah, blah. And the videos from YT get celebrated for it. If GeraldUndone posts a video about whatever technical, resolution achievement it becomes a fact and a must have. If Zedlin, a working Hollywood cinematographer, posts a video about how and why filmmakers are chasing the wrong thing... he's considered a dipshit.

I don't know... I think all of these YouTube personalities are full of shit, on some level. And that's fine. It's a niche market in and of itself and if they have found a way to feed their families, then it's no worse than many other professions. As long as you know where they're coming from, then I don't care one way or the other.

They all follow trends amongst themselves, chasing each other's angles. The new angle seems to be... why YouTube content creating is soul draining and why I am getting out.

A month or two ago, one of my favorite YT shillebrities posted a video with that topic and then he broke in the middle for a word from his sponsor...

HAHAHAHA!!!!

2 hours ago, QuickHitRecord said:

Thanks for turning me on to this guy. I just listened to a great podcast with him and his crew on NFS. He embodies a filmmaking philosophy that I definitely strive for.

He's been on Noam Kroll's podcast as well and he mentioned an ingenious thing he does when he slates a shot. He basically claps and then instead of calling it Take One, take two, etc... he uses the file name on his zoom recorder in place of scene/take name/numbers... if that makes sense 

Or this model was selling better than the Pyxis but they want to push that camera as their next gen of cameras.

Either way it's a good deal and equivalent to the famous OG BMPCC fire sale of 2014.

5 hours ago, PannySVHS said:

Who are you talking about? Always grateful for your recommendations and point of view. Phil Ohs looks very interesting btw.

The filmmaker that made the WW2 5Diii/ML Raw video. Yeah Pete Ohs is pretty interesting actually. His past 3 or 4 films he has made on his own after getting a "real" budget to make a movie and hating the process, so he took his 5D3, casted some actors and wrote a very loose script that they wrote/rewrote each morning before filming. He makes a movie a year. I believe he edits on a livestream and people watch and may make suggestions... or he did with Jethica.

Just reread my last post and realized I meant to write that you guys can be discussing 16K and I'll still be praising... anyway you get my point.

Also in my haste, @BTM_Pix I forgot to mention that one thing I noticed from that video which really helped was his use of old Hollywood close ups with a glowing blurry background. I think it helped to add to the feel of the piece.

And with that, I think the feature film he was working on is almost completed. However I assume he shot it on the Komodo because I think that's his camera of choice now. 

Wish I had more money.

On 5/21/2024 at 9:09 AM, Emanuel said:

And now to those who still think this is not possible with this camera...

...let alone the skin tones possible to extract from this combo beauty there ; )

 

Emmanuel, this looks fantastic, and I just mentioned it in another thread so I thought I'd  come here and state the same thing...

As much as I like the image from these BM cameras... and this is just gorgeous... I am starting to notice when I look around at the low to no budget film community that everyone is using a BM camera now and everything looks the same. It seems the influencers on YT have developed a canned cinematic look, that although looks nice, it's also rather boring looking in some ways... or I guess the better way to say it is that it looks too similar to everything else.

But...

I really must say that it looks fantastic and if I had the money, I would have ordered one by now, especially at this price.

On 4/22/2024 at 10:51 AM, BTM_Pix said:

I like the look of it too.

I think what it is benefitting from greatly, aside from the compositions, image quality and general shooting competency, is what I would call accidental environmental production design.

The uniforms and demeanour of the subjects are consistent and tie together as does the station setting and its train and staff.

When the shots are framed, as many of them are, to only include those elements then it provides the right aesthetic to sell the "cinematic" image.

The proof of that, for me at least, is when other none designed elements stray into the frame and not just the obvious of modern vehicles etc but onlookers with modern clothes (particularly those out of the general colour palette) then the illusion is gone and quite jarring to be taken out of it.

No amount of obsessive grading is going to cure that.

Oh and the use of a tripod does absolutely no harm whatsoever in this as does the flattish light of what I am guessing is the archetypal overcast Bank Holiday day in the UK.

All in all, aside from it being a good advert for a camera from "yesteryear" in modern terms, I also think this is more broadly a very good example of why "cinematic" doesn't just happen when wafting a camera at random scenes no matter what YouTube thumbnails will scream at you.

When it comes to trying to do this in the wild, its definitely a case of granting ourselves the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the skill and vision to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

 

Sorry, I have been meaning to reply to this for the past few weeks but life has gotten in the way. You know, it's so easy to not even mention or think about the obvious production value he had by shooting at that event. In some ways, I even glossed over that in my praise of the video and it may add to the reason why I liked the camera in the first place. Now I'm a stubborn prick, so I cannot move on from it until I have made a proper film with it. You guys can be discussing 6K and I'll still be yammering on about the 1080p image from the 5D3 and ML Raw.

4 hours ago, KnightsFan said:

People use iphones and super 8 film cameras and get their work in festivals. Doesn't mean I'd recommend those as general purpose cameras either. And I'm also not saying that anyone using ML should switch anything up. I've personally not found the image to be particularly better than any modern cameras, and the on-set workflow in particular is pretty bad on sets with any size crew (the original post about ML was comparing it to Alexa's on professional shoots). Now certainly back in 2015, ML was amazing. At that time, I shot a bit with early BM cameras like the OG pocket, the 2.5k and later the Ursa 4k. And I was on shoots with Red Ones and Epics. So ML was truly an outlier as a large sensor, affordable camera with quality recording.

Btw I've seen lots of the images you've posted using ML @mercer and I love them.

Of course, people have different use cases and I haven't been following this thread too closely, but from the title, I thought it was a desert island choice... not if the desert island had a thriving film market. That said, you aren't necessarily wrong about the 5D3, although I have found it to have close to 12 stops of usable DR when you expose for the highlights. It's actually pretty insane how much information exists in the highlights on this camera. That said, it's definitely not a camera I would recommend to someone who was working on a production for pay. I believe Pete Ohs used the camera because that's what he owns, so it was probably a pragmatic choice more than anything else, but since he has had multiple films shot on the 5D3 and ML Raw over the past few years at SXSW, Sundance, Slamdance, etc... it should be proof enough that the image is more than good enough for narrative filmmaking. I use it because I love the image and the ergonomics and haven't found a better one for what I want to capture.

To change the subject slightly, I have been impressed with what these new, prosumer cams can do. Even the Sigma FP... which is more similar to the 5D3 and ML Raw than anything else... in a lot of ways... except it doesn't have the highlight retention that the Canon has. But between Blackmagic, Sony, Canon and Panasonic and even Fuji... there are so many options that it's pretty insane and the gap between them and an Alexa is narrowing.

But...

Someone posted in another thread a video of pretty young woman shot with the FF BM 6K camera that's currently on sale and I must say it looks gorgeous, but there really is something I am noticing.... all of these cameras look the same and it's this weird nod to YouTube "filmmakers" ... think about how weird that is... people are starting to consider what is considered cinematic by what videos on YouTube look like.

I have no interest in that. I'd rather shoot a film on a camcorder in night shot mode if I'm being honest.