mkabi

Just came out of watching Sinners in IMAX. What can I say? Its a good movie, I really liked it a lot and I would highly recommend it. Cinematography 12 out of 10. Acting 10/10 Story 9/10 - I would give this 10/10 if I didn’t think it was slightly inspired by dusk till dawn. If you don’t think so… 2 criminal brothers flee south to some bar to fight off vampires… [SPOILER ALERT] 1 brother is level headed and the other one is off…in both movies there is a girl that is forbidden fruit where the brother that is off wants that forbidden fruit. In Sinners the forbidden fruit is a white girl (black guy in prohibition time), in Dusk till dawn Quentin Tarrantino (yeah he acted in his own movie) was the creep that wanted to fuck the 16 year old (the forbidden fruit). Look… there are some sequences in this movie (sinners) that you’ve never seen before and that alone makes you forgive the inspirational notes and thats why its still a high 9 out of 10 for me.

Well… take it as a learning experience… What was your job on that project? In the future, if you have some input on it… state the gaps in pre-production. And, also… just to elaborate on “Figure out the story you are trying to tell before shooting.” A lot of people have an “idea” or an epiphany of what they want to shoot… that’s not the same thing as a story. Usually a story has a beginning, middle and end; a good story has a climax and resolution with characters and character building (so the audience has some connection with the characters they are watching)… now having a climax… characters… may be too much… but at the very least have a beginning - middle and end (thats the bare minimum requirement). The idea or epiphany is stuck in the beginning… there is no middle and there is no end. You don’t need to have a full on script… especially if it’s a one man band. But, write it down (may its a 1 page - point form thing) because it will help organize your thoughts.

Biggest lessons I learned… Figure out the story you are trying to tell before shooting. How is the image helping you tell that story? Massage/manipulate the image before shooting… wear complimentary clothes, move things around… turn an image that would’ve been great with normal clothes and current setup to something more epic. Last one is controlling light. Yes. We all know to adjust shutter angle and iso in camera, we also know to bring a couple ND filters, pro mist filters… and even lights for late night shooting… but there is a thing and its really magical if you know (again about controlling light)… for example - the golden hour (specific hours in the day where the sun works with you instead of against you). Filming on rainy days….Throwing water on concrete (day or night) helps a lot, something to do with how much light is absorbed vs reflected. Adding smoke (smoke machine) or filming on foggy days (fog machine), it adds layers to the image but it also limits the light entering the camera.

I'm actually 44 years old, been in it since 2010. My first cam was t3i - been around the Canon camp for a while, my current cams is an R5 & BMCC 2.5K. I also owned a Raven at one point & the prime trio of cinema lenses, downscaled a lot. I like Fuji a lot... had the xt-30 for a solid minute but then sold it. But, I praise Fuji over Sony and Canon all the time. I'm in the Canon camp cause of the eco-system - hard time selling these lenses. But your 5 year schedule and/or trickling down theory... I think you're hyper focused on the iteration between a7s2 and a7s3... every other alpha camera... put it out sooner (see the schedule here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Sony_MILC_cameras). They didn't have to put out a camera with the latest tech cause they didn't have any real competition. You are praising Lumix... where is the s1h mark 2? What happened to the S9 isnt that trickling down?

You must be new to the scene... cause this scene isn't even that old. Even the alpha cameras are only coming up on 10 years... we are already in like 5th iteration (especially in the a7r line)... every 2-3 years isn't slow, actually fast compared to Canon's 4 to 5 year per iteration. Yeah... they've slowed down compared to the beginning, but thats cause they know they got the Youtube community in their hands and they are quickly catching up to Canon's numbers. But to say they are "known for its slow, incremental releases..." since when? between Sony a7s ii and Sony a7s iii? I'm sure a7V will wow... mostly because of price and config.

I'm in the same boat/wheelhouse.... In fact, I've moved on to other hobbies.... mainly watches and cars... sometime in the next 5 to 10 years.... there is going to be a used sports car in my garage, hopefully its a 911, or a 1969 Mustang. Don't get me wrong, I still do photo/video... thats still my passion... but gear wise - I've topped out. Phones, Cameras, TVs.... don't excite me anymore... I used to get excited to go into an electronics chains like Bestbuy or a camera store.... now its like... do I need anything from there? Nope? I'm going home. I believe that most of time its about attaining the pinnacle or close to what you think is the pinnacle.... I'm sure if Hasselblad released an X3D with 8K and 4K/120p - I'd be super excited about that, but my Canon R5 is good enough.

$600 Euros + upgrade from 7D -> Anything... even entry level stuff... just saying... unless you were using ML religiously, trust me... anything. Shit, the only thing you will be giving up is the weather proofing and the tank like build of the 7D. If you want to keep it in the Canon family - even a R100 would beat the 7D in the image department (SOOC; no ML). If you want to venture out of Canon - Fuji... these are beautiful little cameras... even going Entry level here - go X-T30 II.... can't go wrong. If you want to go full frame - Sony a7 iii - on the Used market (may need to stretch the budget a little here). If you want to go full frame on Canon - I'm sure you can find an R8 on the used market too (may need to stretch the budget a little here too). Good luck.

If you went EF mount route, I would've recommended the Magic Booster by LucAdapter. In my opinion its a cleaner application... https://www.lucadapterstore.com/product-page/magic-booster-c-2-5k I think he is only applying an OLPF filter here not the actual focal reducer, but same way to apply it:

Wrong its the white box - labelled Red under the tripod.... duh!

There are even better options in 2025, you should definitely wait.

Which pros are doing this^^^

I'm in a similar boat, I don't technically need the latest and greatest, BUT... if I need to upgrade, for whatever reason, then I will get the latest and greatest. No point in sitting in the Stone Age and remaining there, complaining about these kids and their new gadgets... sounds like a grumpy old man.

Sometimes you have to move towards progress otherwise progress leaves you. Not to toot my own horn but I got an 75 inch 8K TV back in 2019.... did I need it? Nope. Funny thing is... I had a 60 inch 1080p TV before it, I used it to watch movies in the basement (my man cave) and it was nearing 10 years since I got it... it could've kept going but I had replaced the living room TV with a 55 inch 4K TV (in that same time). I was late to the 4K TV game, everyone else in my family already had one.... and given that I will be holding onto them for 10+ years.... why not get the latest and brightest. Oh, BTW, it has AI upscaling so the 1080p doesn't look half bad on that screen. Similarly, I just got a iphone 15 (the base model) - again not trying to show off - cause the last phone before that was an iphone XR... I don't switch every year, I don't see the point of doing that. Some guy was recommending the iphone 14 to me, but since I'll be holding onto this phone for 5 to 10 years too, I would want the latest and greatest just to stay relevant.

I’ve always had that idea… had it back in 2014 in fact… I said… why not take the innards of a GoPro and put it in a canon??? I think I said it in the Magic Lantern forum at which point they said that I was trolling (TF?).

Funny thing about this… It was harder to shoot and edit a movie in this day; forget about the price of equipment too. Even harder to shoot a “good” movie, forget about an “amazing” movie… with amazing characters and scenes… But, once it was said and done… it was easy to sell… there was always a major buyer/distributor. Fast forward to today… easy to shoot and edit, hell you can do it all on your phone… you can do it well too… it might take some time to write the script, storyboard and even find decent actors - go to a drama school and take your chances with auditions etc…. Nonetheless the price of admission is super low… again you can do it all on your phone. However!!! You will have a hard time selling it.