PannySVHS

I don't agree with everything you said here, but I think what you're describing is exactly the spirit of this thread. Be it an FZ47 or a Canon t2i... a GH2 or an iPhone... beautiful images can be made with discarded or unassuming cameras. Some of them even have a look that is equally as interesting as old film or something very high end. I've posted these a bunch of times, but I love what the RX10ii can capture in sLog2 with Monochrome color...

Or this shot from the D5500 and an old Tokina 24-40mm zoom lens...

Now I'm not saying they're great images or anything, but I think they show that these old neglected crappy cameras can produce something interesting... good, bad or otherwise. 

I find that photos and video are very different and I don't prize either from a smartphone.  My friend only takes stills and the really good ones get printed and framed and put on his wall.  He's shot many more photos with his phone than with his ancient Canon DSLR (IIRC it's a 40D?) and yet he's never taken a single photo with his phone worthy of being printed.
In terms of video, you seem to love your smartphones but I find the images thin and uninspiring.  They have large resolutions and frame rates but I feel they lack all the things required to give them feeling, which is why I shoot in the first place. 
In terms of overthinking things, that's what this forum is for, mostly.  Hardly anyone comes on and says "I shoot this what do I need" gets some technical info and then says "thanks, I've got it all working now, bye....".  There are a few, but all the rest of us are really just here, overthinking everything!

Absolutely.  I'm not sure this really ever gets discussed here - the effect that the setup has on how well you use it and how creative you are when actually shooting and making directing / composition / lighting / etc choices.  
I know that the GH5 felt way nicer to use than the XC10 and for me I think a big part of that was how the images feel in post and the 10-bit codec - holding the camera and knowing that when you hit record you're making files you will enjoy editing in post certainly contributes a lot to my experience while shooting.
Camera size is one of these things - not only does it change how you use it and how you feel about using it but it also changes how the people around you feel about the situation.  Filming in public with a huge camera makes people wary and distracted and on set will make them take you more seriously (warranted or not) and the opposite is true of small cameras.

I see a S1H, S1, S5 or GH5/6 as a cinema camera such as those from blackmagic. Great image, ergonomics, built quality and battery.
Best AF in video for those who need it, no. Best image quality and codec, image stabilisation and camera bodies, yes, Panasonic. S5 going for only 300eur higher than a R7, offering a true cinema image and best in class low light latitude. Plus pixel to pixel S35 4K 24-60p, besides full frame downsampled 4k 24-30p.
For Canon AF fans with 10bit love and good 4k up to 30p, the R7 looks fine.

It was/is a pretty popular camera on here.
You might want to consider putting my Cinelike D hack on it for a bit more flexibility.
 

If you want more GX85 nerdery and discussions then look no further.....

General use.
I have a S1, that I love, but it's so big and heavy it hasn't been out of its bag for the last few months, so I wanted something that I can just pick up and go with. The particular motivation for doing it now is that I'm going on holiday (first time in three years) in a few weeks and the thought of lugging the S1 around was causing me considerable trepidation. With this I can put the camera and my three native lenses (25 1.7, 17 1.8 and 14 2.5), plus my Mavic Mini 2 in my messenger bag and still have room for sun cream (and my Crane 2S maybe)!
In fact, after initial testing, I think I'm probably going to sell the S1. I was thinking I would need to hold on to it as I've been asked to do a music video in a couple of months, but I think the GX80 will handle it nicely - in that scenario I'll be speedboosting my set of Super Takumars.
A few weeks ago i tried out a FZ2000 for a couple of weeks, but it failed to impress. What's the point of a super zoom when the long end is unusably soft? Also the colours didn't do it for me, but this little chap's rendition is not a million miles away from the S1's.
Last night I was using Standard and Natural, both dialled back. Over the weekend I'll be giving @BTM_Pix's bit of wizardry a try to see how Cinelike D fares.

After various test made with A7SIII, I was not satisfied so I traded in to buy XF605, very similar to my old camera HPX170, more comfortable. Changing lens to have 3x zoom or similar, and the risk of dust into the sensor of A7SIII, make me think is not well designed for my generic use.

update 0.1:
since it doesn't come with mic or mic stand, there were a big ugly hole on the right side handle, so I used some soft  silicone rubber that left from some old project, cut it with razor and voila! a rubber cover, not pretty but it works and I don't need to worry dust and rain water will get inside handle anymore.
Here are some screen shot fresh comes out of it, RGB444 on PIXE5, 180° shutter and ISO800, SLOG of course, 5600k WB, just transferd it to R709 and a tiny touch to exposure. The dynamic range and color science is truly amazing! Indeed it is a reason that F3 was called 'baby alexa'

How often do I mention that I'm interested in another camera? And then how often do I buy said cameras?
Even though I know the camera in and out, and could probably shoot with it now without any exposure aids, and even a blacked out LiveView, I still feel like I am scratching the surface with what the final output could look like.
Other than maybe the FP, I don't know if I could get a purer image without spending a lot more. At that point, I may as well just rent cameras.

Right, now I remember! That was the build and settings that worked best. I just might pickup a 5D3 again at some point for nostalgic reasons and to experiment with ML RAW again. Good to know the workflow in post is simplified a bit too..
Absolutely. I actually also simulate the film workflow with my Leica M9 as the playback is totally useless on the super low res display, no live view and it only takes small size SD cards that I fill to the max with only 24/36 pics available. Changes everything. I did a pro portrait shoot recently with this M9 setup and the R6, end result was well 36 shots on the Leica vs +400 on the Canon. There were great shots on both cameras but the clients favourite was by far the Leica ones (and I did not tell them which came from which camera). There was just more work/effort put into the composition, direction etc.. was an interesting experiment!

Buy one of these choices. They seem to make equally sense to your variantes of wants. Or, if money allows, all of them.😂 Sorry, usually i am not up to cute remarks, but your last post, in context to your og post, made me laugh. Still laughing. This thread will go on forever.😊

It's a Premiere this time in the region (north of country) where I was born and raised... Y'all Invited!
https://www.avanca.com/
https://filmfreeway.com/avancaff

 
Shot on Blackmagic Pocket 6K camera series (G1).
 
Proudly Co-Produced in Japan by this EOSHD fellow of yours,
- EAG
 
 
 

I've made some more research and discovered that Fujifilm's video AF may not be as good (with regard to reliability) as I was thinking. It seems like it still needs some refinement or requires too much playing with the af settings (as shown on one of Philip Bloom's videos). Sony a7 III or Canon R would be a better choice but there aren't any good deals on them right now (to be within my constrained budget). There is a good offer for a Fuji X-T4 - 1000 EUR body only but I'm considering to back out a little and maybe start with some cheaper Canon DSLRs with which I'd have to rely on MF only with my Carl Zeiss 50mm f1.4 and not be disappointed by the faulty AF of Fujifilm. Which one would you choose - Canon 5d mark II or III ML Raw (MF with 50mm Carl Zeiss f1.4) or 5d mark IV (DPAF with Canon 50mm f1.8) in cropped 4k? Maybe give Fujifilm a chance but buy a cheaper X-T30, or wait for reviews of the new Canons i.e. r10 and r7?

Nah, the stable Nightly Build is 1080p Full Frame 14bit 16:9 Raw. It shoots continuous with proper live view. Playback was wonky when I tried it back in '17 so I never tried it again. It has exposure meters including a Raw Histogram with an Over Exposure Warning including which channels are clipping. It has peaking and "Magic Zoom" ... punch in while recording. Everything is stable and I've never had any hiccups.
Only the Experimental Builds have a crop and a wonky Live View.

i dont think theres anything wrong with fixing wide angle distortion in post in the first place. did you not like the results from trying that out?
as for lens recommendations, i happen to have some similar opinions as @PannySVHS. the meike cine 12mm performs great imo. the first, third and fourth frames i posted from the short were shot on that lens. i think they are coming out now with a stills housed version of the same lens too, if thats interesting for you. if you want something less wide, their 16mm is my most used lens. ive had that same slrmagic 12mm too and i wasnt a big fan due to its rotating front element, which made it unusable with matteboxes. wasn't a true t/1.6 either, and was too soft for me under under t/2.8 as well. it might also be worth mentioning that i have no experience yet with any stills lenses on mft, so i cant recommend any of those myself. 

So true !!  I guess the Canon FD lens helps too to get the final touch of the picture look.

Best looking GH4 video I ever saw.

I watched this video recently, which I thought was quite enlightening..
One thing it mentioned was that advertising / media / marketing deliberately do things that will filter out unwanted people from the pipeline:
spam makes copious amounts of spelling errors as they don't want to waste time trying to con educated people get rich quick types are deliberately assholes so that they can sell to people who care about money more than people etc..  

I think that kind of stuff is done to make dumb people feel smart. Like those memes on Facebook that say something like "99% of you won't be able to find the hidden word", or whatever, even though it's fairly obvious. Your racist aunt will share it, with the text "found it!" regardless. 
I'm not sure what the end goal is, there has to be one, but it seems similar. 

There's a really 'funny' video ad on YouTube right now where the guy suddenly stops speaking (visually) but continues to talk...because of course it's an AI voice.
Claims 98% of people wouldn't notice.
Officially then, 98% of the planet are a bit stoopid.
This. Is. An. Artificially. Generated. Voice. It. Is. Impossible. To. Tell. Though. As. It. Is. Exactly. The. Same. As. How. I. Speak. In. Real. Life.

YT is a very strange place indeed.
Recently I found a YT channel that uses exclusively primitive CGI footage and artificially-generated robot voices (I suspect deliberately made worse) and yet it is far far far too funny to not be humanly generated.  Here is one video I recommend:
I also recommend the Queen's Gambit Defence video too - longer but worth it.
If this is AI, it's not all bad!

Kodak claims 20 stops and Arri claims 10 stops of DR for negative film... so it's probably somewhere in the 13-15 stop range. 

Good points, but I think perhaps you took a few things out of context.
Firstly about the DR figures..  your quote was correct - I did say "colour negative film has 5.5 stops of DR between 2% and 90%", and I did mean that, however, I absolutely did not mean "colour negative film has 5.5 stops of DR", which is a completely different statement and one that is factually incorrect, as you point out 🙂 
(As you said that you didn't read the page I linked to, ARRI actually said "Current color negative materials can capture a dynamic range of 9 stops" and then had a summary table that outlined the exposure values at various points, of which the 2% was three stops below mid-grey and 90% was 2.5 above mid-grey).  
The reason I quoted stops of DR (either for the 2%-90% range for film or 5.2 stops for rec709) was to establish an absolute measure for how much contrast in a scene would translate to how much contrast in a given image.  
What I mean by this that when you adjust the image so that the clipping point of your input file is at 100IRE and your noise floor is at 0IRE, you can then adjust the contrast knob and you decrease the amount of stops that fit between (say) 10IRE and 90IRE, without losing the total DR (because it compresses that in the rolloffs).
The point of mentioning these things was to make the comparison between the DR captured by these "worse" cameras and the level of contrast in a properly lit/exposed film pipeline (eg in theatres), or a properly lit/exposed 709 (eg video broadcast).  This means that in these lesser cameras, by the time you shoot something in their 709 profiles (and maybe add some contrast or rolloff in post) then you're getting a similar level of contrast in the final image to these reference pipelines.
The purpose of that comparison was to say "these cameras have a similar level of contrast to get the looks that are desirable and even nostalgic".
I would go further than this actually, I think that given the (perhaps) 7-8 stops of DR in the video mode of these "worse" cameras it's easier to create an image for non-proficient colourists than it is to do so with a camera that captures more DR.  I know that when I was grading the images from the XC10, I had trouble with its ~11 stops of DR, because I wanted to keep everything it captured, all the way from the texture in the clouds to the subtlest shadow details.  
I don't know what it was about that challenge that kept me from getting it right, if it was that when I added enough contrast I would lose any contrast in the parts of the image that got pushed into either rolloff, or if I didn't know how to balance the level of contrast with saturation (converting the XC10 C-Log into rec709 using the CST or Canon LUTs gave crazy saturation that I didn't know how to deal with at the time).  Regardless, it was essentially too much for me to handle and I struggled.  Had I been given an image with those levels of contrast built-in, I think I would have just taken what I was given and did what I could with it.
There's also an element of the paradox of choice.  The more choice we have with something, the more that we get anxiety around not having chosen the best option.  The optimum amount of choice is (of course) not zero, but actually the peak where anxiety hasn't yet overtaken the experience is quite low in the overall spectrum, certainly lower than people would think, especially in todays world where manufacturers are always pushing us to think that more options is better.

Now, @kye I'm a big fan of your posts, steeped in research and a relentless pursuit of the truth, with a generous doses of suspicion of received wisdom and contempt for misapprehension and hearsay. But in this case you might be a little bit guilty of some of the things that you so rightly rail against!
I haven't read the link as I'm drinking wine on holidays in Tuscany, but surely the point being made in that document is that the difference between 2% and 90% reflectance of linear light is 5.5 stops (it's straightforward multiplication), and not that negative film has a dynamic range of 5.5 stops (slide film might, depending on the film).
No, it's not similar to film, unless you're talking about Velvia slide film, for example, which does have a very limited dynamic range because it's so contrasty. Negative film can record a lot more. Around 10 stops is probably the lowest I've seen (Ektar 100). That's the recording medium. The display medium traditionally was paper (about 7 stops) for print photography, depending on the paper, and I don't know how many stops a projector could reproduce but I'd guess that for movies the dynamic range of the negative was compressed to fit the dynamic range of the print film.
Sony's point about Rec709's dynamic range being around 5.2 stops has a lot to do with the dynamic range of a traditional CRT display. And historically this was all that was needed. Black paper and white paper in flat lighting conditions, ie: TV studio lighting. If you watch old BBC shows like Fawlty Towers and Mr. Bean you'll notice that the interior scenes, where lighting could be controlled, were shot on video, and exterior scenes (where it couldn't) were shot on film. It was all compressed for shitty old TVs. But you can still spot the difference.
Any Vision 3 film or still film based on Vision 3 technology should be ok at 5 stops over for skintones. The highlights will be a bit compressed for sure, but the skin itself when properly colour balanced should look fine. Here's Portra 400 at 5 stops over:

Anyway, these are just small points and your thesis still stands: that there's a lot to be gained from shooting with "lesser" digital video cameras.
To that I would add for you specifically Kye or anyone else reading this thread who is interested in image quality - which I define as (in order of importance) colour interpretation, stops of light reproduced and resolution - get yourself a 1990s/2000s autofocus film SLR that will accept one or more of your existing lenses and shoot some film OR any film camera. If you like pretty pictures, it leaves digital in the dust.
But yes, we are shooting on digital devices that record 10+ stops and have been for quite some time now. The average scene brightness range is 7.5 stops and if you're grading for a Rec709 display, traditionally that meant quite a bit of contrast. So if your camera A does 12 stops a camera B does 10 those 2 extra stops are in the very bright highlights and the very dark shadows. However, with an insipid Netflix drama grade where everything just looks like they shot in log but forgot to apply a lut you would definitely notice a difference. I don't think film ever looked much like that (although it could, if we had wanted it to). And we'll look back on the log look in ten years' time with the same rueful sense of aesthetic horror as we view any decade's transgressions of taste, until in another decade or two they become cool again and everyone scrambles to recreate it.
So don't throw out your first gen Sony S-Log thingy, just as I've kept my MiniDV Canon XM2 that I expect to be asked to make a music video on any day now.