PannySVHS

Last set of stills from Seoul. We took a walk through backstreets and alleyways down to the river, stumbling across a tiny neighbourhood railway crossing...

Hongdae.










Choosing stills is different than choosing shots for an edit because the movement really makes things completely different, so I've ended up with much cleaner and more minimal stills.
In reality, every street and alleyway in every direction looked like this virtually as far as the eye could see:

Hmm, ok.  It hasn't happened that many times and seems to be fixed with a restart, so I guess I'll just carry on.  The whole thing of shooting slowly because it's fully manual seems to align with the idea that you miss things happening, so if a shot here or there requires a bit of fiddling then it's not a big deal really.
Speaking of carrying on, went for a walk in the backstreets of Yongsan last night.  I had to cheat another stop by going to 360 shutter as some places were seriously dark, but in post I was able to raise up images by a stop, and if I put a bit of NR then I could go even further without issue.  Of course, this requires grading the images properly - where blacks are actually black!
I'm actually surprised how good the low-light is.  This is only at F2.8 with a zoom and IS, and yet it's basically usable to replicate what you can see in real life, despite being S16 and almost a decade old.
Images even less graded than previously:










One thing I've noticed is that with the 12-35mm not being that long a zoom, and with my monitor set to show a 2.35:1 crop, I tend to compose with people smaller in the frame than with other cameras I've used.  I don't know how well this is translating, as in theory this should make the 'world' larger by showing people smaller in comparison, but as I only have my laptop and not my normal monitor I'm not used to judging.

I haven't been able to use my Micro yet as I have no cards for it. Really curious to test it out though. I used to own the original Pocket camera which I am fond of. 

@kye
Those frames look excelent, though probably mostly to do with your compositions. 

When I feel sad, to cheer myself up I always go and read the comments on Andrea's rumors sites. 
Some people have been eating peyote. Random comment:
 

And for the other 0.1%, may I offer you a very warm welcome to the forum.

Colors and textures smoke the S line cameras imho under ambient and natural light. Great stills! @kye So cool and really worth it that you brought your little cinema camera with you! I bet you are having tons of fun with your footage. I still got 4 hours of Bmpcc clips from this summer to go through. It's an honest low light camera, giving you what the eye can see btw.

Will be using mine tomorrow, not my p2k but the micro again. It has been a year or so since the last time. I'm charging batteries and cleaning lenses right now, a bit late to the party, silly me.😊
Exited to see more from you and to read about your adventures! @kye What lens did you use at the tea museum, the 12-35? I am wondering if @mercer has rebought a m2k again. Does @TomTheDPplay around with one or is the Alexa his only dual gain baby?
What I absolutely love about the og pocket and the micro are textures, motion and highlight rolloff. Just sayin.😊

Laowa 7.5mm for even wider if you have your camera has a mft mount, of course.

Colors and textures smoke the S line cameras imho under ambient and natural light. Great stills! @kye So cool and really worth it that you brought your little cinema camera with you! I bet you are having tons of fun with your footage. I still got 4 hours of Bmpcc clips from this summer to go through. It's an honest low light camera, giving you what the eye can see btw.

Very nice. I like the framing of some of these. It's great you brought it along. Good to have in your pocket.
It's too bad that BM doesn't just make it again. Doesn't need to even be 4K, just needs to be good and small.

Went to tea cafe / tea museum.  Very formal in a handmade sort of traditional way.
Barely graded stills:







 

A few frames from yesterday..  Almost no grading done.

HVX/HPX and VX1000/2000 are all still very popular in the action-sport community, specifically in skateboarding, for the power zooming and lack of rolling shutter issues. The VX1000 specifically is like a fetish object to skateboard filmers. I very much doubt these cameras would fetch the prices they do without that community seeking them out.

It seems I was wrong and Inland Empire was not shot with a DVX100 but with a PD150. @Al Dolega   I've been thinking about the HPX170 as a valid alternative for the  mysterious and ultra rare DVX100 Andromeda. With 3 CCDs, 720p, 8bit 422, 100mbit to P2 cards, what's not to like. But first I gotta get rid of some of my stuff, cupboards clearout. 🙂

One little hack is to look for the PD150, and PD100, these are the "pro" versions of the VX2000 and TRV900, respectively (with XLR boxes and could do DVCAM). They were rarer and of course more expensive back then, but can often be found cheaper nowadays because people just aren't aware they existed and they don't show up in searches for the VX and TRV.

What a gem
Your next shoot...
(23:33 if it doesn't queue at right spot)

In Berlin I've been trying to find a DVX100 for a while and actually they are pretty rare now.
There's also the TRV 900 Sony handycam which has a certain appeal with a nice Zeiss on the front.
The VX1000 and VX2000 I am also looking for, but some of the prices have recognised the current inflationary conditions of 20%, plus VAT, plus Instagram tax, plus seller remorse, plus Sony Handytax, plus tips https://www.kleinanzeigen.de/s-anzeige/sony-dcr-vx1000-e-minidv/2796362065-245-3433
There is however a TRV 900 for 100 bucks at a local junk shop... with a C31 error.
This error was famous as it was apparently fixable by "giving the camera a good smack".
So if I can get the shop owner out of earshot for a few seconds somehow so I can whack the shit out of his camera I might be in luck?
Maybe he needs a bit of DIY and a few window frame nails doing anyway?

I've just seen it on theatre and it's simply stunning.
Extreme depth of field in all desert shots gives you the impression to be there.
 
 

Funnily enough, I’ve been at my storage unit today going through stuff in the dustier boxes buried at the back to do exactly the same.
During the quest, I found this and concluded that Panasonic really do hate us now.

Was there ever a camera more inclined to make you pick it up and go out and film with it.

GX85 or LX10, also GH5 would show mush whereas the M2K produces a believeable low light image. Nice shots. Thanks for posting. Enjoy your trip. We will enjoy your findings and footage you might share.:)  @kye

Arrived in Seoul and recovering from flights etc.  A storm rolled in and I grabbed some shots with the BMMCC.  I'm just getting used to the low-light limits so these are test shots as much as anything.  I've done almost no grading to these at all, but they look like movie frames, I'm really impressed.


 

If it were to only take videos, I could make do with the camcorder and a phone. However, I find the phone too limiting and ergonomically a black hole of no return. Like you say, "thread the needle" is the name of the game on holiday and travel. Don't want to get too noticed by family or others. There are a couple of lenses that can make the MFT system unique for this purpose:
Olympus 75-300mm, at only 423g, it covers a lot; Panasonic 12-32 kit lens, at 70g, why wouldn't to take it?; A favorite fast prime; there are many- just pick and choose your favorite(s). There are lots of options and I often find myself in the weeds.

Interesting observations.
I've mentioned my priorities elsewhere previously, but the first one is to get the shot.
What this means in reality is having a camera with you that you actually take on the trip.  Then that you take with you when you leave your accommodation.  That you take out of your bag / pocket and turn on.  That has the right lens to get the shot you want.  That can focus and expose and compose fast enough to capture the moment.
There's lots of pitfalls along that road for cameras to fall into and result in not getting that shot.
Packing a smaller MFT with a long zoom and a faster lens option for low-light is a master-of-none package that threads the needle pretty well to get the shots you want.
Do they look like a Cooke on an Alexa 35? - hell no.  But if I had one of those on a trip and pulled it out in public the only thing I would be able to film would be people looking at the bozo who was shooting a movie, that is until security stops me asking for permits.

I'm back from holiday. In retrospect, although the camcorder was fun, I suffered from "camera paralysis", a horrible disease where you don't know what to take with you. In the middle of my stay, I realized the GX800's display couldn't cut the mustard in any sort of bright conditions on the beach or in the Palouse area of Washington State. I did the right thing by obtaining a E-m5 iii, an old fav from a few years ago that I had sold. I'm now reconverted to MFT. I'm not sure what to do with my S5ii. I'll probably sell and pay down my car. Might sell the GX800 too (though it's a fun camera). Or, not sell anything.
Next time, I will be bringing MFT lenses that cover ultra-wide to 600mm equivalent and I'll have no need for the camcorder.