HockeyFan12

There's a much bigger audience online, but, as you're probably learning quickly, people aren't always as nice!
So the first question is who your audience is. (Online? Festival? Broad? Niche?) The second question is what your goal is with that audience. (Are you doing spec work to get hired to direct at somewhere like Buzzfeed? Trying to build a following for your own unique brand online? Trying to find like-minded creatives to work with or for? Trying to get a technical/craft job or exclusively writer/director?)
The bigger your audience, the more you'll have to stoop to the lowest common denominator. Look at YouTube stars like Pewdiepie and Jake Paul; that's the image of a successful online filmmaker. If your work doesn't resemble that, maybe don't go that route. If you want to direct spec ads, imitate ads and apply to production companies. If you want to direct at Buzzfeed, imitate Buzzfeed videos and apply at Buzzfeed. If you want to go to film school, submit according to the application process. 
But the more niche your voice/its potential audience, the harder it will be to find the audience and the harder it will be to monetize. But also, the more creative freedom you'll have, and hopefully the longer your brand will persist. (There are a few niche web series I love. They don't seem to make much money, but one of them has been around ten years now.)
But even finding your audience is sort of irrelevant unless you're great at marketing.
A family friend used to sell roles in his high school movies to finance them. I think he's now running one of the largest YouTube empires and is making seven figures. Ditto a friend of mine used to sell DVDs and now he runs a very successful corporate video production company. They changed audiences, but their strong sales skills remained. Ultimately it's the same marketing and promotional skills that worked in person that later worked online, and it's more the marketing than the filmmaking that gets you in the door, and then the filmmaking talent that sustains the success. I don't know if I have any talent with video, I hope I do! But I know I don't have much with marketing, or at least I'm uncomfortable with it due to low self-esteem. :/ And frankly not really liking a lot of online content these days or even a lot of theatrical films as much as I used to.
So I won't even be attempting what they did, but my audience is different anyway. We all have different audiences, or maybe we have many audiences for our different projects. I might be doing spec work rather than making a YouTube channel, or I might be applying to festivals... or even getting a PA or low-level job at a company that makes my favorite work just to meet the right people there. Or I had another idea that maybe someone might watch on YouTube. But a letter never goes anywhere if you don't know who to mail it to. If you just want to be internet famous, be a sociopath on YouTube. If you're inspired by a director you really love, reach out to him or her. If you feel you appreciate his or her work better than others, try to work for him or her. Be stubborn about it. Track your heroes down. Find their email. Ask every month to be a PA on a set of theirs. Travel to where they live for an interview. Then hand them that DVD (or script, or Vimeo link) in person. That's your audience of one. This actually works. Regardless of specific tactic (it all depends what you want personally), know your audience and what they want. Your audience might be one person. If you're doing a fan film it might be Marvel fans. If you're doing a camera vlog it might be camera fans. If it's something new... risky, but go for it. Plenty of different approaches depending on your audience. But know them. And know yourself.
Even the festival scene, which is somewhere in the middle of those two options, is all about marketing. I have friends who've gotten into nearly all the top ten festivals and the trick is they're part of that social network and they really really push hard with their applications, even hiring people to promote their films. The other trick is that once you get into a top ten festival, other festivals will ask to program you. The whole festival scene is a bit of a farce, but the farce is simply the disconnect between how they market and what the truth is. Big festivals need content to match their brand, so they're fairly conservative. Even if your brand is "edgy" you have to stay on brand, so it's a conservative approach to edgy. Small festivals need films that played big festivals, so they're even more conservative! (But knowing programmers personally–the DVD route, so the speak, matters here. And I was surprised to learn that a short at a major festival attracts more attention from a talent agency than a Vimeo staff pick and by far.)
The other really sneaky thing is that a lot of the most successful Vimeo videos are actually made with assistance from larger production companies or agencies or post houses, but are marketed as very guerrilla. This isn't always the case, some stories are true, but don't believe everything you read online. (Certainly don't believe me. If I knew what I were saying, I would be working now–not posting this!) But internet platforms aren't all they promise to be; that promise is just the marketing by YouTube and Vimeo to get you to produce content for them so that they can monetize it. The success stories of online filmmakers are their marketing. And they're very good at marketing. And you're their audience. So if you haven't had a lot of success online, maybe try a different route? 
The one thing NOT to believe is that if your work is creative and unique and great others will discover that and flock to you. I saw one of your videos and you have a good voice and should keep doing what you're doing, or exploring what you want to do next, whether it's more of the same or something new. Probably the most original voice I've seen on this forum, but this forum seems mostly to be about image quality and specs. I've seen more creative voices at Slamdance and SXSW and Sundance and Rooftop, for instance. (No offense, perhaps they're just more developed. and I have friends who pay the bills doing corporate and then make really wild and awesome festival films–so you can be interested in both markets for sure.) 
But the idea that people online will immediately recognize what you have to offer and leap to make more of it is a very myopic view. Look at Spielberg's first spec film, it's not a personal story. It's more an example of visual talent and competency. His creative voice developed after he got in the door directing TV. I think Eraserhead is the only example I can think of of a really outsider voice nailing its first landing. People see Jake Paul succeed and assume everyone should see their work and judge it better because of what an asshole Jake Paul is, but that's not how it works. Jake Paul is a genius at what he does. What he does is just act like a high school bully. The Kardashians are geniuses at what they do. But what they do is appeal to lowest common denominator, which is also the biggest audience there is. Don't judge them based on their audience; find a different one.
I'm on time out here for posting incorrect technical information, which I again apologize for. And I feel like I'll probably get some pushback for a lot of the above being factually incorrect; I expect a lot of it is, and I wouldn't take my advice if I were you, since I'm just an anonymous guy online. So take it with a grain of salt. But I do think knowing your audience, knowing how to market your work to them, and knowing how to meet them halfway is crucial. The first thing film schools do is to "normalize" your voice. They look for creative voices then tone them down and improve production value so those voices are tolerable to the other students and faculty and then eventually to festivals. (Although a lot of film schools aren't worth the money, so if you aren't rich, consider that they're also marketing their wares to you and want you to think they're gonna do things for you that maybe they can't. Some are good. But be wary and make sure you apply to the right ones if you do, and you definitely don't have to.) All media are social media, so look at your relationship with your audience as a relationship with a person (or cohort...), whether you make it a real personal relationship (selling DVDs, pursuing your favorite director or production company) or a virtual one. I think maybe this forum isn't the right audience for you (or for me) if we're trying to get into festivals, for instance. If I knew more technical stuff, it might be better for me. Different values. For instance, I have a lot of friends who've gotten into top ten festivals recently with 1080p/2k films, but here I keep getting reminded I need 4k. Both can be true, just for different audiences. (To be fair, some of those were shot at higher resolutions and delivered at 2k DCP... I ate my words once and I'll keep chewing.)
But the festival route is really hard and really slow. (Like filmmaking used to be!) And online feedback is really fast and comes with instant gratification. I don't know if the festival route is right for me, I don't know if anything is, if I even have the talent, or if I do, if there's an audience for it. But I think the replies you're receiving in this thread speak to a disconnect between what you're making and your audience's expectations. (Not to be rude.) So I'd give that some thought. Removed from your current outlets, what are your goals as a filmmaker? Who are your favorite filmmakers? If you could make anything and show it to one person what would it be and who would you show it to?
That's the trick. You're marketing yourself to get into a festival/get YouTube famous/work for your favorite director or at your favorite company. But they're also marketing toward you so you watch their content and believe in their brands. And marketing isn't about the audience or the creator exclusively, it's where the two meet. Know yourself. Know your audience. Meet halfway. 
But also take everything online (including this) with a grain of salt. Online relationships are rarely worth as much as those in person.
 

Those Netflix originals (and the most recent Sundance feature I worked) were released last year. Things are moving fast, but large professional markets are the slowest to catch up. And frankly, most festival features don't have the budget to finish at 4k.
I'm just offering my experience, maybe elsewhere things are different. For stock footage I totally agree you want 4k bare minimum, fwiw.

For personal work, I don't care about 4k or 10bit. But for stock footage I think you do want to shoot 4k bare minimum. Beyond that, just do a cost/benefit analysis if something even higher end will improve your client base. I don't think you need to worry too much about bit depth, though...
Because for stock footage I don't think the requirements are as exacting as you think. BBC specs are for the A camera. B cameras can be whatever. No studio is going to reject a lone clip of stock footage because it's 8 bit instead of 10 bit, that would be insane. The difference between the two is usually invisible anyway, except for HDR or with thin codecs or poorly exposed images. It's only if the image doesn't hold up subjectively that a client would turn it down. In fact, the bigger question is what database you're on. Some networks won't use Pond5 because their clearance system isn't rigorous enough.
I worked on a Netflix show and the footage itself was all 4k raw but the stock footage was whatever worked, like anything HD would be fine. I remember on Wolf of Wall Street (which I didn't work on, I wish I could have!) they used iPhone 5 footage for a shot. I never noticed in the theater. Some of the drone footage was also 1080p 8 bit (C500 but without an internal recorder). I didn't notice. Others here with keener eyes surely did, but for bigger clients usually the technical image quality is less of a concern.
Most of us here are aiming for significantly higher technical image quality than Wolf of Wall Street on our personal work, I get this this forum prides itself in delivering the utmost image quality without a lot of money, but it doesn't mean most clients care. That said, with stock footage there's a good change your client will be zooming in on, grading, compositing, or manipulating your footage pretty heavily, so any extra resolution is good and log files aren't a bad idea. But I would be very surprised if they even looked at the bit depth. 
Personal work is obviously another story.

Today I think it's more vlog-oriented, but back in the day I really liked dvxuser and Channel 101. Both had five-minute film festivals that some real talent emerged out of!
Back then virtually everyone was shooting with the dvx100 and better image quality wasn't really affordable. So the discussion had to move to other things, I guess.
It speaks to there being a void (or me not knowing the online community as well as I should) that I can't think of a good equivalent that's as popular today.

Locations permits (often) run in the thousands each and require production insurance in the first place, which is another thousand dollars. That makes shooting non-commercial work a lot less fun when it's more expensive for one day on location than to buy the camera you're shooting with!
I don’t think having a script and boards is abnormal, I thought everyone here did! It's a filmmaking community,  after all. I was drawn into the hobby by narrative and by an interest in acting originally, but that's subsided since don't like being on camera much it turns out. The script is my main interest now, even though it's often an excuse to try out new gear. I thought most people here were shooting narrative, but I suppose there are a lot of documentary shooters, too, and corporate video shooters.
 
My understanding (based on SAG rates) has been that ultra low budget is under $625,000 and low budget is between $625,000 and $2.5 million, but there's lots of budget manipulation so it's usually in fact higher.
Either way it's semantics. I'd fall into the no budget/guerrilla camp.
Also I agree with the sentiment that an Alexa is A) not that expensive–you can rent a mini here for $250/day, less than the cheapest location fee, and B) not materially different from an F3 for most purposes. If it doesn't look amazing on an F3 it's not going to look amazing on an Alexa, you might just have a little more highlight detail and a better texture and less skew. (And better high frame rate options, but worse low light.)
Anyhow, I can sere why some of my opinions have rubbed people the wrong way recently, I made some incorrect assumptions about the community and their needs. I get now that image quality is of more importance to other people than it is to me, so my advice isn't helpful, and might lead people down the wrong path. To that extent, I should just get back to writing and not arguing over camera specs. My apologies. 

I think what Arri means (someone else can correct me if I'm mistaken) is that most of the UI and buttons on the Amira are placed on the left side of the camera, facing the operator. Whereas traditionally, and on the Alexa Studio, they'd be on the right side of the camera, where the AC could hit record and make adjustments.
Traditionally camera operators aren't tasked with hitting record, but since different operators work differently I assume there are record buttons on both sides of both cameras–but the UI is switched on the Amira so the camera op can make adjustments to frame rate, etc. without an AC. I think. Arri might have also added focus peaking so the operator can pull focus without an AC; I'm pretty sure that's on the Amira viewfinder and I don't remember it being in the Alexa one. Not sure.
Don't quote me on this, but I think that's the main difference. Not that it's ideal for a single operator, but that in some limited circumstances (such as NFL films), it's conceivable a single operator could use one because the UI is on the other side of the camera.

Some PAs make that little where I live, too. I've seen $150/day jobs. That doesn't seem so bad just getting started for a PA, though on reality tv PAs get closer to $400/day. I think people take low pay jobs for experience and networking, not the money.
That said, I don't get how anyone lives off $150/day without support from family. Living wage is about $100k-$150k/year here, not that I'm necessarily pulling that in myself.

I guess I agree with you then!

I'm up my own ass here to some extent. I was in a weird mood.
This quote says it better:
But I'd add–don't use equipment you don't have the crew to support.
I haven’t used the Amira personally. It looks appropriate for a smaller crew, but not dSLR level by any means. I've never seen one used for a documentary, but I know they're popular with "indie" crews, particularly on smaller professional sets like Twin Peaks: The Return that a more "guerrilla" approach. I bet Kubrick would use one with a skeleton crew.
I find the Alexa Mini and Red to be inappropriate for a one man band, despite the small size. Too much to rig and maintain. The C300 and C100 (popular with Vice shooters) and even the FS7 are borderline. I could see them being used by wedding shooters or news journalists. 
But if your aim is to get gimbal/steadicam-type shots, as it seems the goal is here, then certainly an FS7 rig requires a bigger crew than you'd need for a GH5: ideally a steadicam op to fly the bigger camera all day and a wireless FF system for focus, and a monitor for you, the DP. And then you have enough batteries involved you want a second AC. So I stand by that. But you'd also get way better results with that crew than with a gimbal.
Of course, if the client didn't ask for gimbal shots, then why are you seeking to deliver them? If all they want is tripod shots, then yeah.... no need. Gimbal shots are not inherently better, and if they aren't asked for, they're almost certainly less desirable. I have not seen much, if any, really good gimbal footage. I'd prefer sticks almost every time, but that's just my opinion.
Where I do disagree with you is that some producers will push a certain camera like they have more faith in it than they do in the DP. So that is annoying... I've been working with more F55 footage lately because streaming services are demanding 4k deliverables and it's dumb. 3.2k Alexa footage looks better. But the F55 looks really good, too, so whatever.
For me personally, I just don't care that much about image quality, but I care a bit about how you can move the camera and a LOT about how fast you can move. I feel I can appreciate the Alexa when I watch the Revenant in theaters. I can appreciate the ease of use of a C100 or 5D when I have one on set. I guess? So for me I agree with the original poster's comments on my own sets, but my own sets are just YouTube videos and fun stuff. But for a professional client, if they didn't ask for gimbal shots, then why does it matter if you can get them or not?

Heh, yeah it really does. I know that a lot of members of this board will only shoot 4k 10 bit, and I get it, that's the same as Netflix wants, so there must have been some subjective research done to show that it's substantively a lot better. Maybe everyone else here has  better eyesight than me and I'm on the wrong board. (Likely.)
(Fwiw, I do think for HDR the 15 stop 4k 10 bit spec is spot on. But I'm not shooting HDR...)
But I go on Vimeo and watch amateur videos and there isn't this sudden night and day difference once the GH5 or C200 hit. Even on Netflix (I don't have the 4k option on my account), I can't always tell what was acquired and finished at 2k and what's an original and finished at 4k 10 bit. Everything looks about the same to my untrained eye past a certain point. When it was the GH2 vs the 7D I saw a huge difference. The Alexa made a huge difference over the Red MX. And I've always loved the look of film and can spot it every time, but technically it's softer than most 1080p video, so that's just taste there, nothing to do with image quality but rather aesthetics. 
So maybe it's not that I don't care that much about image quality, I'm just blind to it. Time to get glasses maybe, or maybe brush up on technical comparisons, I guess. When I zoom in or pixel peep of course I can see the differences, but those seem to pale in comparison to aesthetic differences or just a good story. Probably just me.

I don't think a big camera is a problem if you have a big crew. With a second AC to carry everything and swap batteries, set up monitor, etc. and a first to pull focus and hit record and set up camera settings, and a DIT to handle cards, all you have to do is operate, or not even that if you have an operator, especially for steadicam shots, jib shots, etc. where you'd traditionally have even more crew and definitely get a better result than from the gimbal you're using yourself (no offense).
Under those circumstances, why not go for the FS7 or something? The image quality will be better. I suppose you need to plan a bit more to manage crew efficiently, but that's in the job description: "director" of photography. With a crew that size, you can manage a bigger camera better than as a lone gun with a dSLR, at least if you're a good DP, and get the benefits of a better image, too.
But without the crew, I'd take whatever the cheapest option was that delivers adequate image quality, probably a dSLR or mirrorless camera, maybe even using autofocus or image stabilization at times. But that's because I'm not a real DP.
A bad carpenter blames his tools. I wouldn't blame the camera for being big, it just needs more people to operate it. But in this case a good carpenter might be five people each getting paid $500-$1000/day. So I hear your point, but it all depends what you're working on and what the budget is. 
Fwiw, I shoot with a medium/small mirrorless camera and get better results with it than when I operated or DPed on shoots with an Alexa. But I didn't do a great job on those shoots (nor have the resources I needed) and I'd just like to hope that with experience and access to a full crew that would change. But it probably won't for me since I'm a hobbyist.
This doesn't reflect poorly on you or on me, I don't think, at least not necessarily. (It reflects poorly on me that I can't operate an Alexa well, but I never said you couldn't.) I've seen some extremely high end content (award winning major national campaigns) shot by lone wolf directors and DPs on 5Ds. And that stuff is breathtaking. They were working under circumstances where they didn't have access to a full crew, but rather wanted more time to wait on the right light etc. or in remote locations, and they made the right compromise. 

I think what makes film and retro games popular are specifically the flaws and artifacts. 
To that extent, I think it's more likely that old point and shoots, cell phone cameras, vapor wave, Simpson wave, anything really really technically bad but with its charms will become associated more with a classic digital look.
A band I knew in college used to be into the idea of how heavy generation mp3 compression was the millennial's equivalent to vinyl hiss (though it looks like millennials gravitated to vinyl hiss, so maybe it's the next generation that will gravitate to low quality mp3s). 
I agree still cameras haven't progressed that much since Nikon introduced the D90, and even video is leveling off now.
But I think the "classic" look will be associated with the bad, not the good.

I think what makes film and retro games popular are specifically the flaws and artifacts. 
To that extent, I think it's more likely that old point and shoots, cell phone cameras, vapor wave, Simpson wave, anything really really technically bad but with its charms will become associated more with a classic digital look.
A band I knew in college used to be into the idea of how heavy generation mp3 compression was the millennial's equivalent to vinyl hiss (though it looks like millennials gravitated to vinyl hiss, so maybe it's the next generation that will gravitate to low quality mp3s). 
I agree still cameras haven't progressed that much since Nikon introduced the D90, and even video is leveling off now.
But I think the "classic" look will be associated with the bad, not the good.

The most hype man in fashion this year, Virgil Abloh (who recently made headlines after being appointed creative director of Louis Vuitton) held a fake press release for his collaboration with Nike, shot on throw away point & shoots and retro digital video cams:

 
..on the right there is the Canon XL2 series zoom, released in early 2000s. always loved the look of that camera from shape, ergonomics to color scheme..

Had some pretty cool features as well for the time including 3CCD, 24p, cine gamma & even film grain feature!
https://youtu.be/tsz4asyrmjs

I think what makes film and retro games popular are specifically the flaws and artifacts. 
To that extent, I think it's more likely that old point and shoots, cell phone cameras, vapor wave, Simpson wave, anything really really technically bad but with its charms will become associated more with a classic digital look.
A band I knew in college used to be into the idea of how heavy generation mp3 compression was the millennial's equivalent to vinyl hiss (though it looks like millennials gravitated to vinyl hiss, so maybe it's the next generation that will gravitate to low quality mp3s). 
I agree still cameras haven't progressed that much since Nikon introduced the D90, and even video is leveling off now.
But I think the "classic" look will be associated with the bad, not the good.

The viola is cool! It's not super bright, but for its size it's quite good and useful even for non-special purpose work as an on-camera LED or fill light. Its LEDs seem weirdly harsher than usual but not a big problem. 
The strobes show some rolling shutter, I only see it on the attack and not the decay which is weird but probably just chance and they sustain for a while, so it's nice.
Don't use this if you have epilepsy... very crazy light.

I agree with your list, but everyone should do their own tests with LT. The image quality there is pretty dreadful even compared with XDCAM and AVCHD, but for some content that's fine and it's much better than standard definition or something.
While it's true that transcoding can't improve an image, I was comparing AVCHD vs ProRes variants from a clean (uncompressed) HDMI output. 
In my experience, AVCHD was still better overall than any ProRes codec below 422 HQ. Except with foliage. Here's a test that closely mirrors my findings, but theirs is much better!
 

I agree with your list, but everyone should do their own tests with LT. The image quality there is pretty dreadful even compared with XDCAM and AVCHD, but for some content that's fine and it's much better than standard definition or something.
While it's true that transcoding can't improve an image, I was comparing AVCHD vs ProRes variants from a clean (uncompressed) HDMI output. 
In my experience, AVCHD was still better overall than any ProRes codec below 422 HQ. Except with foliage. Here's a test that closely mirrors my findings, but theirs is much better!
 

Hey, finally done with the trailer to our debut feature film at 55Media shot almost entirely on the Panasonic GH5 (some shots on the GoPro6 and P4P) in just 12 days.
Our best work yet. Movie is still going through post-production.
Production company: 55Media
Director/Writer: Uche Aguh
Director of Photography: Dennis Schmitz (me)
Assistant Director: Ukairo U. Ukairo.

Starring: Jarius Drew Sowells, Kayode Akinyemi, Vincent Ramirez, Thiree Pinnock, Julian Horton, Obum Nwankwo and J Shawn Durham as 'Daddy G'

Editing done in Premiere.
Colorgrading done in Davinci Resolve.
Dealing with the usual quirks of this camera, but results are still great.

More information:
www.imdb.com/title/tt7928156
www.55media.net

Couldn't help myself, picked up a used one for $118.
Can you program in animations to simulate flame or a flickering fluorescent or something? I've been looking for a budget magic gadget since years ago. Can you program color loops?
Of course the trick with magic gadget flame gags is ganging up a bunch of different lights to create some real chaos, usually including a constant base source dimmed way down to a low color temp like embers, so one of these will never replace but merely supplement that. Aputure's approach seems to understand the need for being able to program in animations; recording a flame and then recreating it on a larger scale is sooooo cool. But even a poor man's version of that would be wonderful, especially for $118.
Lighting with projectors as hard sources and RGB(W) displays as soft sources (look up Sony's Crystal LED technology) is sort of the holy grail of control. This is sort of like a super low res Crystal LED.
And until then, Digital Sputniks aren't bad.
They are too expensive, though. Hoping the app offers some decent control not just for color but also for animation. What are your experiences?
Edit: just watched this video: 
!
So cool
As for Deakins, I think that stuff is pretty common. I see a lot of batten strips/covered wagons and when I talked with the DP of the Sopranos he explained that most of their sets are lit by massive grids of 60w (or maybe 100w) incandescent lights on dimmers, at the top corner of each set. The approach is simple, always keep the scene backlit by those and then accent as needed. But you need to be very very good to dial in the details and of course the cost of constructing custom lights is often greater than just buying something fast and cheap and only justifiable or feasible on a big set in the first place...

Lots of cool looking stuff there!
I was trying to build my own tiny flexible velcro LED lights, but it seems there are similar better options here, and also considering buying four 2X2s from Westcott when they were on sale for $500 apiece to make an 800w 4X4 to rent out. Looks like Litegear already has an 8X8 version, even better! That's the book light of the future and possibly bright enough for day exteriors, too. It claims 1600w and while I doubt it has the punch (beam angle) of a 960w MacTech (which gaffers tell me is about equivalent a 6k HMI through diffusion), the extra wattage might make up for it.
I would love to rent that for the right project. I'm sure the price is extreme, but the smaller lite mats are excellent, so that could be useful even for day exteriors... maybe...
That's a shame that lightning is gone, that's one of the main reasons I bought the light but I was probably going for more of a strobe effect anyway. To be fair, at that power output (guessing 10w equivalent about) you could just get a bog standard high CRI E26 bulb and flicker it with a switch or button on a dimming device. The brightness would not be that different whereas "real" lighting units are brighter than 6k HMI so it would never be useful for that except maybe in dimly lit interiors on an A7S or something. The real issue is the attack and decay envelopes being too hard with LEDs, though some seem to be worse than others... I'm experimenting with that now actually. For all I know the "strobe" effect on the viola is just as harsh as standard lights, unless you can carefully tune in the attack and decay (the sine wave effect looks good, but maybe too soft).
Though I hope I'm surprised about the brightness. And I assume the more of those you buy, the better. A fire gag constructed out of three or four of them could be brighter and more varied. I actually just found two more at $120 used so I picked those up. Could be useful for fire gags club light gags etc. and there's not much else in this price range that is.
 

No worries. Those camera threads are always tricky! We want to assure ourselves we have the latest and greatest but we're also legitimately biased because our cameras are what we know how to use best. 
 

I'm not sure what you mean. Wasn't there just a DIY lighting thread? I didn't mean to brag about anything–attaching LED strips to velcro is pretty simple and anyone could do it who was inclined to. Same with taping together 4 2x2 Westcott lights into a 4x4. I'm just glad there are alternatives that don't require DIY.
If I was bragging about anything, it's just that a few DIY ideas I had were showing up in commercial products. But mostly because I'm glad to learn they'll be available for rental!

In my experience the image is much worse than h264 variants, including AVCHD and Canon dSLR codecs, but the performance is excellent.
It's a proxy codec, meant for offline edits. I wouldn't use it for anything else. It's not as efficient as h264 and the image quality is much worse, it's only built for speed for offline edits. 
Still, it's usually good enough to judge if footage is in focus or something so if you shoot with a built in LUT and nail exposure and don't expect to grade or otherwise manipulate the footage you could get away with it for certain content. 

I've never used FCPX so I couldn't speak to that.
It's been my experience working in the offline edit (generally in Premiere; I assume the transcodes were done in Resolve by the DIT, though) that ProRes 422 Proxy footage is unusable for anything except preview. Fwiw, it's always been Alexa footage, sometimes with a rec709 LUT applied, sometimes in log. Perhaps the Alexa, because it's fairly noisy and flat, is particularly unsuited for that codec, but generally I find it to have excellent image quality.
I can't speak as well to LT, but I don't remember it looking particularly good, either. (I forget sometimes if the proxies were 422 Proxy or 422 LT since I think it varies by post house.)
This is more anecdotal because I think Atomos' early recorders may have had a poor ProRes implementation, but generally I found the image quality from external recorders as compared with AVCHD out of a camera to be:
422 HQ > AVCHD > 422 > 422 LT 
That's with the caveat that while AVCHD edged out 422 overall, when there was a lot of camera motion or a lot of moving foliage, AVCHD was significantly more susceptible to macro blocking. So for many people 422 would have been better than AVCHD depending on what they shoot. Below that, LT was clearly worse.
I was very surprised by this result since 422 is considered good enough for broadcast (some network shows used to and still might shoot 422 instead of 422 HQ to save space) and AVCHD isn't. To be fair, the difference was very small, whereas 422 HQ was a lot better than either.
I don't know if that's due to Atomos having a poor implementation of the codec–I suspect it is–but generally I find the thinner flavors of ProRes to be quite poor and Proxy to be unusable for anything but... proxies.
Also, you can't tell much by bitrate alone. ProRes is a DCT (discrete cosine transform) codec and less efficient than ALL-I h264, which is a wavelet codec, and that's only touching on the very basics of both codecs. ProRes is built for speed more than it's built for image quality.
Again, just my experience. 
Of course it is all up to the client, I agree with you. A while back I worked on a few shows for cable (tier one cable, but still lower budget shows) that seem to work with thinner ProRes or DNXHD variants than most people on this board would consider acceptable, and the raw footage had substantial macro blocking, whereas prime time network tv seems to mostly be 422 HQ but again standard 422 also seems to get use, or used to. (Most people on this board have wildly higher technical standards than prime time network tv and indie film, closer to Netflix or major studios, which is ironic since for a while streaming had the lowest quality delivery codecs and it still might.) Still, I would put Proxy and LT both below even the tier one cable threshold and to my eye they are far worse than AVCHD, but I think AVCHD is pretty good. I don't know whether or not the BBC accepts LT, but imo they should not. I don't know if their standards are based purely on bitrate or also on subjective impressions, since 50mbps MPEG2 is much better than LT as it's interframe and I believe that's the lowest they'll accept (they won't accept AVCHD).