Happy Daze

If your looking at used S1, make sure it has the vlog upgrade or you'll need to figure that into the cost. Between the S1 and S5 I have both and prefer the S1, the full size HDMI will one day serve you well if you want to shoot RAW. If you haven't held either then visit somewhere that will let you experience the difference, the S1 is solid and feels reassuring but it is heavier which for me is a preference. The S1 viewfinder is more than twice the resolution and a joy to use. Both are great cameras but for me the S1 stands out. Good luck.

If your looking at used S1, make sure it has the vlog upgrade or you'll need to figure that into the cost. Between the S1 and S5 I have both and prefer the S1, the full size HDMI will one day serve you well if you want to shoot RAW. If you haven't held either then visit somewhere that will let you experience the difference, the S1 is solid and feels reassuring but it is heavier which for me is a preference. The S1 viewfinder is more than twice the resolution and a joy to use. Both are great cameras but for me the S1 stands out. Good luck.

If your looking at used S1, make sure it has the vlog upgrade or you'll need to figure that into the cost. Between the S1 and S5 I have both and prefer the S1, the full size HDMI will one day serve you well if you want to shoot RAW. If you haven't held either then visit somewhere that will let you experience the difference, the S1 is solid and feels reassuring but it is heavier which for me is a preference. The S1 viewfinder is more than twice the resolution and a joy to use. Both are great cameras but for me the S1 stands out. Good luck.

I know this one: Squirrel shit!
Is this off topic?

A hazelnut?

Don't need to buy anything this year, I have more cameras than talent. Unless of course Blackmagic or Panasonic release an L mount 8K. That will help take my lack of talent to whole new levels and will be more clearly defined.

Don't need to buy anything this year, I have more cameras than talent. Unless of course Blackmagic or Panasonic release an L mount 8K. That will help take my lack of talent to whole new levels and will be more clearly defined.

Don't need to buy anything this year, I have more cameras than talent. Unless of course Blackmagic or Panasonic release an L mount 8K. That will help take my lack of talent to whole new levels and will be more clearly defined.

That was an interesting read and I enjoyed your demo reel, thanks.

Don't need to buy anything this year, I have more cameras than talent. Unless of course Blackmagic or Panasonic release an L mount 8K. That will help take my lack of talent to whole new levels and will be more clearly defined.

2024 is upon us and I have decided to look back before looking forward. How did everyone else's year turn out?
 
Work
2023 has been the busiest year I have ever had, I have shot an even wider variety of events than before as well as small projects such as photoshoots, social media content for clients, etc. This year even logging into this site was a luxury I rarely had. Next year looks like it will be the same as I continue to build a repeat client base across a wider spectrum of project types.
Gear
Each year my goal is to buy nothing and of course it did not work out that way for me. My biggest purchase this year was to build a new editing workstation. I was having real problems editing the H.265 10bit 422 footage that the R7 and R5 produce and time is money as they say; with so many jobs my workstation became the limiting factor. I ended up building a custom workstation with a Core i9 CPU, 24 cores, 128GB of memory, NVME drives, and RTX 4080 GPU. Most importantly I made sure that the CPU I selected supported QuickSync which can hardware accelerate H.265 10bit 422 footage. This setup with Davinci Resolve finally fixed my Fusion and footage lags once and for all.
I also now have access to AV1 with the new CPU which produces almost lossless footage quality. I thought it was going to be a great new codec to use; until I found out Vimeo does not support it even though they say they do (my first AV1 upload to Vimeo stuttered horribly and was unwatchable), and on YouTube the user has to specifically enable it in their profile to enable AV1 playback. I will still probably always upload to my personal YT channel using AV1 but for clients I will need to stick with H.265 or H.264.
As many of you already know, my setup is now 100% Canon; R7 (Photo/Video), R5 (Photos), C70(Video) and I use them in that order from a frequency standpoint. The R7 has exceeded my expectations in every way (battery life, Image Quality, reliability, photos, video, rigging options). The R5 is a bit of a disappointment, 95% photos, sometimes a B cam for the R7, or a C cam for the R7 and C70. I probably would be better off with two R7's and the C70 but it is too late now.
C70 
The C70 is great when locked down on a tripod and especially for long form with XLR audio as an A cam. I am far from a pixel peeper, but for me when looking at the footage after a shoot, its always a bit of a disappointment. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it always seems flatter and duller than the R7 or R5 even though they are all set to CLOG3.  I personally think it is a combination of the Canon speedbooster and the Canon EF 24-105 F4 lens that lives on it as well as the fact that I have little or no control over the lighting for most of the events that I shoot. The 24-105mm is underwhelming in all areas, but I just can't seem to find a better lens for the C70; something like the Tamron 35-150mm F2-2.8 I think would be a better lens for the C70 but that's not an option in EF mount.
I think the 24-105mm combined with the speedbooster does something to the contrast and saturation that is hard to recover in post. Also, the slightest bit of direct light and the image washes out very quickly due to the speedbooster; and when I say direct light I don't mean direct sunlight, I'm talking even shooting concerts and music videos the image washes out terribly from DJ or music video lights. Needless to say, my setup is not doing the C70 any favors, but as a OMB my setup times are already long as it is. I am thinking about switching to a native RF lens for the C70 but that would be an expensive endeavor. The Canon RF 24-105mm F2.8 is $3K....insanity, it would probably greatly improve the C70's IQ but do nothing for its reach.
R5
The 30min recording limit pretty much kills it for anything long form which eliminates it as ever being an A cam even if overheating weren't a concern (which it still is to me). I do shoot b roll clips in a pinch with it or go with the C70 and R7 locked down and shoot the R5 handheld but its rare that I need all 3. The EVF has so much latency that I still miss my 5D4 for photography action shots. Other than the EVF lag, it is great for photography.
R7
I've said enough praises about it, but I do find myself thinking a lot about FF equivalency these days when picking up the R7 (more on that in a moment). To my eyes; the IQ out of the R7 and R5 are identical until the R5's second native ISO kicks in, but if the ISO needs to be that high I am in trouble anyway. These days I use an F7 panel light and pretty much never have to go above ISO800 with the R7 combined with the Sigma 18-35 F1.8 EF-S lens.
Stability
I shoot almost exclusively handheld now. Many projects I don't even bring the gimbal and the few times that I do, I hate everything about it and either don't use it or only use it for one or two shots (long form speedramps mostly). The R7's IS is great, and I no longer try to emulate fancy YT camera movements, I let the action do the moving and just slightly follow it with the camera work. For very short walks (backwards or forwards) I am stable enough combined with IS and sometimes DR warp stabilization that I can pull it off, but needing to walk really isn't as common as you would think for the projects that I shoot.
vND Meike Adapter
My favorite accessory of all time for the R7 and pretty much any camera I have ever owned has become the vND Meike adapter. No more fiddling with lens ND filters, it is nothing short of amazing. It does add a slight green cast to the footage but it is an even cast, no dreaded X pattern or variable cast. In post I just add 20 to the magenta slider in Davinci Resolve and its fixed. Sometimes the green is complimentary, and IMO gives it a higher end look so depending on the situation I will leave it. 
My only complaint with the filter is it does not go to zero stops of ND so if you are running back and forth from inside to outside for an event you have to accommodate the 2 stops when you are indoors by raising the ISO. It is also very easy to bump the little wheel and there are no numbers or steps on it to set it precisely to where it was before.
FF Equivalency
Over the course of this past year I have spent more time than I would like thinking about FF equivalency but not in the way most people do. I personally think the FF "look" is a myth, I have no clue when looking at a shot if it was a FF sensor or not.
When I personally think about FF equivalency it is from a lighting perspective. Before arriving at a new venue for a project I always worry that there won't be enough light available and all of my F2.8 FF lenses are no longer F2.8 on the R7 and the Sigma 18-35 F1.8 usually isn't long enough for back of the room type of long form content (dance recitals, corporate events, holiday shows, etc.) so I usually use the RF 70-200mm F2.8 on the R7 for B cam work. The R7 also does not have a second native ISO so it gets noisy pretty quickly after 1600ISO.
Those situations and the fact that 60FPS is line skipped (in both the R7 and the R5) sometimes makes me wonder if the R6 II would be as good of a fit for me as the R7. So far the R7 has delivered on every project and my concerns about lighting were overblown, but I feel like its the one thing that adds stress to my day when arriving at a new venue for a new project where I have no control over the lighting.
2024 Demo Reel
I also created a new Demo Reel for 2024. This was shot across many years, projects, and camera eco systems. No matter how busy you are, you still need to keep those new customers coming in so I decided to start off the year with a demo reel.
Below are all of the cameras that I think I used for the footage in this video. I also uploaded this video using AV1 to YT.
Cameras - Canon R7, R5, C70, S5, GH5, C200, R6, GoPro 8
Drones: DJI P4, Mavic Pro, Autel EVO II
 
 
 

Good news. Pleased you've got it sorted.

That will probably be the HDMI cable. I had the same issue. Buy something that's rated for 8K, I use this one without problem:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0B76YBHPP/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1
 

That will probably be the HDMI cable. I had the same issue. Buy something that's rated for 8K, I use this one without problem:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0B76YBHPP/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1
 

There's skin in this one, just for you.
 

There's skin in this one, just for you.
 

There's skin in this one, just for you.
 

BMCC6K arrived a couple of days ago. My first day test.
 

BMCC6K arrived a couple of days ago. My first day test.
 

BMCC6K arrived a couple of days ago. My first day test.
 

A collection of some clips captured in and around some local parks in the past few weeks.
Shot in Blackmagic RAW (BRAW) using:
Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera - BMPCC 6K G2.
Blackmagic Video Assist 12G 5 inch connected to the Panasonic S1 & S5.
Lenses: Panasonic 24-105, Sigma 150-600mm (L Mount), Tamron Adaptall 2 90mm Macro (72B).
Thanks for looking, hope you enjoy.
 
 

A collection of some clips captured in and around some local parks in the past few weeks.
Shot in Blackmagic RAW (BRAW) using:
Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera - BMPCC 6K G2.
Blackmagic Video Assist 12G 5 inch connected to the Panasonic S1 & S5.
Lenses: Panasonic 24-105, Sigma 150-600mm (L Mount), Tamron Adaptall 2 90mm Macro (72B).
Thanks for looking, hope you enjoy.
 
 

These were put together from a few clips shot during a couple of days of leisure time!
Panasonic S1, Sigma 150-600mm, Blackmagic Video Assist 12g 5inch, 5.9K BRAW 12:1.
I use BRAW now for shooting stock shots, doubt I could go back to other formats.
 
 

Been living in France for 20 years, this is my first trip to Southend-On-Sea (UK) in some time. It was a freakishly hot day in March 2022 and the rising heat was playing havoc but yet brought a certain charm to the shots. The Panasonic S1 and the Sigma 150-600mm is a heavy combination but it's great for long candid shots. Shot in V-Log.
https://youtu.be/RklH4m1JjYY
 

Been living in France for 20 years, this is my first trip to Southend-On-Sea (UK) in some time. It was a freakishly hot day in March 2022 and the rising heat was playing havoc but yet brought a certain charm to the shots. The Panasonic S1 and the Sigma 150-600mm is a heavy combination but it's great for long candid shots. Shot in V-Log.
https://youtu.be/RklH4m1JjYY