mercer

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...

I took out my VX980 and film this in the morning. After, I threw it into Final Cut and added Film Convert to it. It was so easy. I let the camera figure the exposure on all the shots, but I had a ND32 on it at all times. All the shots were on a tripod. I probably should have uploaded in 4k, but oh well. It still looks good.
 

Heavens above! I am enjoying this camera (AX53)  so much! The zoom is fabulous. The size and convenience coupled with the internal stabilisation and - I might be repeating myself - that zoom is a winning combination. Yes, the image isn’t up there with the best but one wouldn’t expect it to be. But as a tool to take out, have some fun and create some images to enjoy it’s fabulous. I’m glad I stumbled into this thread! 

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!!!!

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!!!!

^ I do the same thing. We write the filename in the script notes so we know what it contains. And when I copy footage off cards, I rename all the files so that corresponding files always have the same name.

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 

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.

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

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. 

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.

Wish I had more money.
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.

Quite surprised by this really.

Means it’s now slightly cheaper than the regular Pocket version and a lot cheaper than the 6K Pro version.
Not sure how “limited” the time is that it is actually this price for I but think it’s a very good deal.
 

Yeah, @mercer's screen grabs look great. It's some of the best looking stuff that we've seen around these boards; there's nothing lacking there!
I continue to experiment with ML on the EOS-M. The temptation of using c-mount lenses in 1:1 crop is too great. That is a fun little camera and I am totally enamored with the look that I can easily achieve. Would I ever choose it for my own passion project? Absolutely. Someone else's passion project? Only if they understood the limitations and risks. That being said, for the right short or music video, I would totally pitch it as an option if the c-mount aesthetic could add something.

Somebody should tell Pete Ohs, who is getting his films in major film festivals and distributed, that the 5D3 with ML Raw is outdated.
Obviously, anyone who has read my posts here over the past 7 years would guess that MY choice would be the 5D3/ML Raw. I have used a handful of "modern" cameras since then and none of them has held up against it. I've been using the Sigma FP for the past year, hoping it would be the upgrade I thought I needed, but it just isn't. Weirdly I find the 8bit 4K mode on the FP to be one of the more interesting features. That said, it's actually a fine camera and if I hadn't had the 5D3, I probably would be more than happy with it. As is, it's just like most other higher resolution cameras... it looks sharper and tricks your eye that the image is better because it looks sharper. If anyone is looking to buy an FP, I am looking to sell mine.
Currently, I am in the possession of an S5iiX and it's fine, but it lacks the overall IQ that just drips from the 5Diii. Frankly I find the image kinda boring. But the camera itself is awesome and an absolute workhorse. I love the ProRes workflow.

Disclaimer:  I'm an old.  Also, this rant is completely contextual to two concurrent projects I'm doing.  I'm gonna blow some steam here.
So, been making a no-budget passion project documentary with my wife and have found myself grabbing my (2017) EM10iii more than half the time to capture our 24p footage.  We have a FUJI XT5 --as well as our (also long in the tooth) GH5 that specs wise does a lot better, but here we are running around with a device that is technically inferior.  The issue is that it's not technically inferior by much when you get right down to it.  For what we're doing, the divide between 8bit video and 10bit video isn't such a big deal.  We're on manual lenses, and, honestly, the image from the EM10iii+our lenses is dang good. 
Paid $300 for this camera.  Seems hard to imagine a cheap cam would be what's used over more advanced gear, but we are certainly doing so.
Funny thing is, I can't rely on the XT5 (and it's admittedly gorgeous colors) because it overheats(!), and while I like the GH5 results, I don't like using the camera as much as I like handling the Oly.  Perhaps it's a mix of things.  Size, ergos, what we DON'T need from the feature set, knowing what'll ultimately work for our particular production, and a weird little feature of the Oly has (2x punch in) that the GH5 does not.
Anyone else holding onto (and often using) old inferior gear because it's good enough and not really chasing new tech anymore? 
I'll testify without irony that we've achieved better footage with this little camera than another million dollar + doc film I'm working on which used an ARRI.  Why?  Because subjects in a doc don't really give a shit when it's a single unassuming shmo running around with a small modest camera like the EM10.  People DO give a shit when they're in front of a giant rigged out ARRI and a crew of 9 self-important shmos flitting around with their serious demeanors and a gaggle of mobile video-village gear in tow.  And people  in a doc behave correspondingly:  Not naturally.  They're performative.  I'm left editing a bunch of dry useless footage from the ARRI shoot.  Additionally not much actual quantity of footage because they were so damn immobile.  Lame.
That's a hill I'll die on regarding doc film making.  When filmmakers put their gear fetish above good content acquisition.  Sometimes that requires big sophisticated gear, sometimes not.  Gotta be honest with yourself about that.  Anyway...
Finally, the doc we're working on will be mastered in 1080.  If anyone can successfully convince me that's not good enough for a doc screener, I'll entertain the argument, but 1080 24p is fine to my eyes.
/rant.

After posting the previous post I went back and compared the looks a few times and realised I was a bit harsh on the ARRI LUT, considering that it was very flattering on my battered skin tone but basically didn't screw up the strong colours too much, whereas the film look is much stronger without being that much more flattering.
Inspired by the ARRI LUT, I created this custom grade from scratch.
SOOC (for reference):

New Custom Look:

ARRI LUT (for reference):

I'm actually really happy with that look - I went a bit further in evening out the skin tones and brightening them up a bit and it didn't seem to come at the expense of anything else.
I think I could easily build a look around this, and will experiment further.

More examples of bad lighting.
This was a 709 shot from my GF3, which obviously couldn't auto-WB far enough to compensate (yes, this looked white in person):

My best attempt at grading in post also couldn't compensate well enough:

But the real demonstration is on a project.
Here's a camera test I shot.  These are the images after grading:

They all look pretty straight-forward, but it took a lot of work to get to that.  Here are the shots SOOC:

Note that adjacent shots have considerably different looks - SOOC:

After:

Obviously I've let the flaring lower the contrast on the middle images to a certain extent because otherwise it would look too forced, but the tint of the first image and second ones needed to be evened out as one had the sun in it and the other didn't.
I've shot these tests by the beach many times, using many different cameras (OG BMPCC, BMMCC, GH5, GX85, XC10, GF3, iPhone, GoPro, etc), shooting manually and in auto, in RAW / LOG / 709, etc etc.  All required decent amounts of work in post to even them out and look normal.
It's like anything - the natural look takes the most amount of work and is, in reality, the least natural.
You keep saying you want nice looking images without doing any/much work, but I've been working super hard at this for quite some years now and it's just not possible.  You either get nice looking images with work, or you wave the camera around and you get out what you put in - a film that looks like a dad with a handycam.
The myth that you can buy it was created by equipment manufacturers trying to sell you cameras and LUT bros on YT trying to sell their LUT packs.

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.
 

🤷‍♂️ 
It looks great to me. I'm not looking for an image that looks exactly like reality. It's definitely desaturated, but I don't agree that it's low contrast.
No offense to the photographer of that shot, but that looks like it could have been shot with any standard profile from a camcorder in auto mode.
As far as... how can I judge the image... look at the skin tones... the weight of the image. It looks and feels like a real movie.

And I'd be remiss if I didn't post this video from a British filmmaker named Paul Cook. It was the video that made me buy my 5D3 and install ML Raw on it and never look back. After 7 years, I'm still chasing what he was able to capture in an afternoon...
 

🤷‍♂️ 
It looks great to me. I'm not looking for an image that looks exactly like reality. It's definitely desaturated, but I don't agree that it's low contrast.
No offense to the photographer of that shot, but that looks like it could have been shot with any standard profile from a camcorder in auto mode.
As far as... how can I judge the image... look at the skin tones... the weight of the image. It looks and feels like a real movie.