HockeyFan12

I don't think I've ever disagreed with a post I've read on this forum more than I disagree with this one. The features you mention are about as closely associated with the specific look of their respective formats (as well as the style they adopt from production circumstances surrounding the use of those formats) as any in recent history. Sure, 16mm has no more resolution or dynamic range than most mirrorless cameras today, but it has an inimitable physicality to its look (film grain, halation, gate weave, etc.) and even a physicality to the approach one is forced to take. And that offers a distinct (and in my opinion frequently gorgeous) look and disciplined style I've yet to see anyone get close to approximating for the duration of a feature shot digitally. No one at that level is shooting 16mm because it's the best format technically or because it's cheaper than 35mm; they're shooting with it because they prefer the process and the look. Sure, you can compare 16mm and today's video cameras on a technical basis and they're surprisingly comparable. But that's like saying dinner at the French Laundry and a bottle of Soylent are comparable on the basis of nutrition and ending the comparison at that. (They might or might not be, but you get what I mean.)
I've seen Chungking Express projected from a good 35mm print at a high end screening facility and the texture and color of it are beyond anything I've seen shot on any digital camera, technically superior cameras such as the Alexa 65 (which can look just as good, only in a different way) included. Not in a way I can easily quantify, but in a way that resonates emotionally. I remember the look of that movie more closely than the story. If you think that film would look as good shot on a GH4, you need to question your own eyes, not Chris Doyle's, and definitely toss aside the resolution chart. There might be less grain on the GH4. It might be sharper. But the dreamlike quality of certain sequences derives specifically from the texture of film. Features shot on 16mm embrace the grain even more.
I mean, Van Gogh's paintings don't measure well on a resolution chart. Should he have used a GH4 instead of a paintbrush? 
Yes, Festen was shot on cheap video. And its success proves a great point that a good story and good performances are more important than "look" for that kind of movie–I agree with you there. But the specific look of the cheap video (no lighting, miniDV) was still made with philosophical (Dogme 95, of course) and aesthetic (it looks like a home video and shares the aesthetic intimacy of one, crucial to the subject matter) intent. It had a large budget. They could choose their camera on the basis of cost. They chose miniDV for another reason. Even if the GH4 were around then, it would still have been shot on home video. It's the filmmakers emulating that look, and not emulating the bad amateur online filmmaker look typically associated with mirrorless cameras and dSLRS (it's not all bad, but I'm just talking about the audience's association with a look), that makes that story work. Another story might look great shot on a 70D. Maybe a story about a vlogger could be amazing on that format. But that would be an entirely different movie!
I would try to be less disrespectful of the choices made by DPs and directors who can afford to make choices on bases other than cost or assume their only criteria are technical!
I'm not trying to say I know what these filmmakers think, and maybe they would have shot on a wireless camera today if they had the opportunity... I doubt it, but I don't know. I'm just saying that you don't know, either.
Furthermore, I think your response is a little ironic with respect to the original topic. Netflix is the company that most specifically chooses cameras based on technical specs; even Amazon and YouTube Red will allow the Alexa's upscaled 4k for original content, while Netflix won't because it's upscaled. And because of that, you have a lot of shows shot on the F55 or C300 Mk II that would look better in every respect (except resolution and again, imo) if they were shot on another camera (or even at 2.35:1 maybe, which they also won't allow). But resolution measures better on those cameras and it's in keeping with Netflix's brand and promise of technical quality, so that's what Netflix uses. I get it–part of their brand is 4k HDR original content. Maybe there are even legal reasons for the choice to stick with "true 4k" cameras, too. And it's fine. Those cameras are close to the Alexa anyway and the crews are super talented and most of the content on there is serialized tv type stuff that doesn't need the look of Chungking Express anyway. But if anyone is drinking Soylent over the good stuff on the basis of numbers, it's Netflix. 
I do agree with the larger point, made many times on this forum, that amateurs like you and like myself, and those who don't have or don't want to spend the money to rent their format of choice, would do best to embrace what's available to them. Just because Chris Doyle probably wouldn't choose a GH4 if he were to shoot Chungking Express today (then again, who knows, he might) doesn't mean he couldn't shoot an awesome entirely different feature on digital. And I agree that a good story, such as Festen's, would work on almost any format, but I reject the notion that miniDV was used thoughtlessly or arbitrarily...

I don't think I've ever disagreed with a post I've read on this forum more than I disagree with this one. The features you mention are about as closely associated with the specific look of their respective formats (as well as the style they adopt from production circumstances surrounding the use of those formats) as any in recent history. Sure, 16mm has no more resolution or dynamic range than most mirrorless cameras today, but it has an inimitable physicality to its look (film grain, halation, gate weave, etc.) and even a physicality to the approach one is forced to take. And that offers a distinct (and in my opinion frequently gorgeous) look and disciplined style I've yet to see anyone get close to approximating for the duration of a feature shot digitally. No one at that level is shooting 16mm because it's the best format technically or because it's cheaper than 35mm; they're shooting with it because they prefer the process and the look. Sure, you can compare 16mm and today's video cameras on a technical basis and they're surprisingly comparable. But that's like saying dinner at the French Laundry and a bottle of Soylent are comparable on the basis of nutrition and ending the comparison at that. (They might or might not be, but you get what I mean.)
I've seen Chungking Express projected from a good 35mm print at a high end screening facility and the texture and color of it are beyond anything I've seen shot on any digital camera, technically superior cameras such as the Alexa 65 (which can look just as good, only in a different way) included. Not in a way I can easily quantify, but in a way that resonates emotionally. I remember the look of that movie more closely than the story. If you think that film would look as good shot on a GH4, you need to question your own eyes, not Chris Doyle's, and definitely toss aside the resolution chart. There might be less grain on the GH4. It might be sharper. But the dreamlike quality of certain sequences derives specifically from the texture of film. Features shot on 16mm embrace the grain even more.
I mean, Van Gogh's paintings don't measure well on a resolution chart. Should he have used a GH4 instead of a paintbrush? 
Yes, Festen was shot on cheap video. And its success proves a great point that a good story and good performances are more important than "look" for that kind of movie–I agree with you there. But the specific look of the cheap video (no lighting, miniDV) was still made with philosophical (Dogme 95, of course) and aesthetic (it looks like a home video and shares the aesthetic intimacy of one, crucial to the subject matter) intent. It had a large budget. They could choose their camera on the basis of cost. They chose miniDV for another reason. Even if the GH4 were around then, it would still have been shot on home video. It's the filmmakers emulating that look, and not emulating the bad amateur online filmmaker look typically associated with mirrorless cameras and dSLRS (it's not all bad, but I'm just talking about the audience's association with a look), that makes that story work. Another story might look great shot on a 70D. Maybe a story about a vlogger could be amazing on that format. But that would be an entirely different movie!
I would try to be less disrespectful of the choices made by DPs and directors who can afford to make choices on bases other than cost or assume their only criteria are technical!
I'm not trying to say I know what these filmmakers think, and maybe they would have shot on a wireless camera today if they had the opportunity... I doubt it, but I don't know. I'm just saying that you don't know, either.
Furthermore, I think your response is a little ironic with respect to the original topic. Netflix is the company that most specifically chooses cameras based on technical specs; even Amazon and YouTube Red will allow the Alexa's upscaled 4k for original content, while Netflix won't because it's upscaled. And because of that, you have a lot of shows shot on the F55 or C300 Mk II that would look better in every respect (except resolution and again, imo) if they were shot on another camera (or even at 2.35:1 maybe, which they also won't allow). But resolution measures better on those cameras and it's in keeping with Netflix's brand and promise of technical quality, so that's what Netflix uses. I get it–part of their brand is 4k HDR original content. Maybe there are even legal reasons for the choice to stick with "true 4k" cameras, too. And it's fine. Those cameras are close to the Alexa anyway and the crews are super talented and most of the content on there is serialized tv type stuff that doesn't need the look of Chungking Express anyway. But if anyone is drinking Soylent over the good stuff on the basis of numbers, it's Netflix. 
I do agree with the larger point, made many times on this forum, that amateurs like you and like myself, and those who don't have or don't want to spend the money to rent their format of choice, would do best to embrace what's available to them. Just because Chris Doyle probably wouldn't choose a GH4 if he were to shoot Chungking Express today (then again, who knows, he might) doesn't mean he couldn't shoot an awesome entirely different feature on digital. And I agree that a good story, such as Festen's, would work on almost any format, but I reject the notion that miniDV was used thoughtlessly or arbitrarily...

In my experience the difference is very small between the two, with Canon having better looking colors (just slightly, the F3 beats the F5's SLOG2 for sure) and the F3 having about a half stop more highlight detail. The C300's codec falls apart in high contrast scenes with a lot of foliage. The F3's codec is only suitable for rec709. Both are great in low light. The Canon is sharper, but also noisier in the shadows. Just slightly on both.
Both are close enough to each other but far enough from the Alexa (which is worse in low light, to be fair), that I'd just take a C100 Mk II any day for the ergonomics. But if a big camera is okay for you, the F3 rig offers 60p and a slightly higher quality image technically. It would not be my choice, but I still recommend it to others.
I disagree about DPX files being functionally any different from video files, but that's a digression. The difference between uncompressed DPX and 444XQ or even 444, in my experience, is completely invisible, and I get irritated when clients demand DPX.
I can send some footage I shot with both if you're interested, but can't post it publicly.
Both great cameras at great prices. You can't go wrong!

In my experience the difference is very small between the two, with Canon having better looking colors (just slightly, the F3 beats the F5's SLOG2 for sure) and the F3 having about a half stop more highlight detail. The C300's codec falls apart in high contrast scenes with a lot of foliage. The F3's codec is only suitable for rec709. Both are great in low light. The Canon is sharper, but also noisier in the shadows. Just slightly on both.
Both are close enough to each other but far enough from the Alexa (which is worse in low light, to be fair), that I'd just take a C100 Mk II any day for the ergonomics. But if a big camera is okay for you, the F3 rig offers 60p and a slightly higher quality image technically. It would not be my choice, but I still recommend it to others.
I disagree about DPX files being functionally any different from video files, but that's a digression. The difference between uncompressed DPX and 444XQ or even 444, in my experience, is completely invisible, and I get irritated when clients demand DPX.
I can send some footage I shot with both if you're interested, but can't post it publicly.
Both great cameras at great prices. You can't go wrong!

In my experience the difference is very small between the two, with Canon having better looking colors (just slightly, the F3 beats the F5's SLOG2 for sure) and the F3 having about a half stop more highlight detail. The C300's codec falls apart in high contrast scenes with a lot of foliage. The F3's codec is only suitable for rec709. Both are great in low light. The Canon is sharper, but also noisier in the shadows. Just slightly on both.
Both are close enough to each other but far enough from the Alexa (which is worse in low light, to be fair), that I'd just take a C100 Mk II any day for the ergonomics. But if a big camera is okay for you, the F3 rig offers 60p and a slightly higher quality image technically. It would not be my choice, but I still recommend it to others.
I disagree about DPX files being functionally any different from video files, but that's a digression. The difference between uncompressed DPX and 444XQ or even 444, in my experience, is completely invisible, and I get irritated when clients demand DPX.
I can send some footage I shot with both if you're interested, but can't post it publicly.
Both great cameras at great prices. You can't go wrong!

I agree that the highlights are intentionally blown in order to gauge dynamic range and rolloff, but I don't agree with you at all that chroma clipping isn't a serious issue. Especially on a camera like the C500 that has less dynamic range than an Alexa or Dragon (but still good and better than its reputation), you can't always expose for the highlights. There are going to be traffic lights, headlights, practicals, blown out skies, etc. in some scenes and avoiding them at all costs or underexposing horribly isn't a viable option. IMO, you cannot make all camera systems look good, otherwise they would look good more often. Most digitally acquired content–even on the high end–doesn't look as consistently good as film, even with the same crew. Only the Alexa seems to get close imo, though I have seen some good looking content shot with other cameras, of course, and some "intentionally digital" looks that work. A friend of mine had a piece graded by Stefan Sonnenfeld, and I remember he mentioned that chroma clipping was Stefan's biggest bugaboo re: camera systems. I won't get into the details because I don't want to put words in someone's mouth, but if the greatest colorist in history struggles to wrangle with chroma clipping, it's a problem, and you'd better hope you're the greatest DP in history to never blow out a single source. Or just use a camera that handles chroma clipping properly. (Fwiw, I don't find hard luma clipping problematic if one grades the knee nicely, and even film appears to hard clip rather fast when processed photochemically–so this is a discussion about color space and rolloff, not dynamic range.)
And there is a massive difference between how the Alexa handles chroma clipping and how the C500/Q7 (as set up there) and F5 or pre-IPP2 Red etc. do. Sure, you can make an Alexa look bad if you're wildly incompetent. But I'd argue you can't light a scene with someone lit by a practical flare on an F5 or C500/Q7 (at least with the settings above, and the ones in the C500 footage I've worked with) without it looking too terrible to really fix in post, because the camera will blow out the highlights to red or to red and yellow, not to white, as with the Alexa (which clamps saturation at maximum at 30 IRE then slowly reduces it over its extremely wide dynamic range). With the Alexa, lighting that same scene well is as trivial as exposing roughly correctly. 
Of course you can to SOME extent avoid that kind of situation, or white balance to your practicals so they blow out more nicely assuming nothing else is blown out (dicey workflow, though). And if you record raw and process correctly this likely isn't an issue even with the C500. I'm just surprised that Canon Log has this problem far less severely than the C500/Q7S combo does, though I imagine there are settings that handle chroma clipping better. Some of the newer film emulation LUTs and even the SLOG3 colorspaces for F5/55/FS7 are fine in this regard, too, to be fair. As is IPP2 a huge improvement over Red's original pipeline. Canon Log, weirdly, has always been kind of good... there's the appearance of chroma clipping, but detail is almost never lost and the knee can be graded smoothly. Not so with any of the footage in the test above.
And all that said, I think most operators overexpose the CX00 series pretty substantially. And in practice this isn't a huge issue under normal circumstances. 

The Ursa 4k I'd put below almost anything, including the cheapest 4k dSLRs. Super clippy and slow with lots of fixed noise. Fairly soft image, too.
But the 4.6k I'd put above both Canons (except in low light).
The C300 and C500 do have the same sensor and the C300 has the sharpest 1080p I've seen and it has to do with the sampling not being traditional Bayer interpolation but instead instead it just groups the photo sites into a faux-Foveon type array so it's just insanely sharp looking. Sharper than the Epic or Alexa or F3 or F5 or F55 at 1080p and noticeably. From what I've seen, C500 has a razor thin OLPF and the Q7 has aggressive debayering so the 4k image from the C500 is sharper looking than a 5k or 6k Red image but it has significantly more aliasing, but not objectionable. Both cameras have similar DR. RAW doesn't seem to provide much improvement there over ProRes, but better shadows than the internal codec for complex scenes.
The C500 is basically a C300 with extra features if you use a raw recorder,  so if money is no issue and you WANT to use an external recorder (I hate them) get the C500 instead. If you plan to crop or stabilize, 4k could be useful for 1080p delivery, though personally I'd (almost) never shoot 4k and if you don't crop or stabilize the 1080p output will actually look sharper, shockingly. But maybe not in a good way. The Alexa is softer, but... "smooth." But you gotta experiment with the Q7 workflow when you shoot raw. When it's set up wrong to record ProRes FROM raw, it can induce chroma clipping and aliasing you wouldn't get in the C300 or C500 alone. And shooting actual raw IMO is not worth the trouble (then again I don't think 4k is either). 
I dunno. Rent for sure, but  think the 4.6k is Ursa Mini Pro sounds like the camera for you. It can alias, even worse than the C500, but in practice I haven't seen much of it. Maybe there's less sharpening to make the aliasing pop. Maybe I just haven't worked with it much. Dunno.

Fair enough. I don't think anyone gets into this industry for the money. But I wouldn't even care which camera I used. $2k/day is quite good for corporate work.

The Ursa 4k I'd put below almost anything, including the cheapest 4k dSLRs. Super clippy and slow with lots of fixed noise. Fairly soft image, too.
But the 4.6k I'd put above both Canons (except in low light).
The C300 and C500 do have the same sensor and the C300 has the sharpest 1080p I've seen and it has to do with the sampling not being traditional Bayer interpolation but instead instead it just groups the photo sites into a faux-Foveon type array so it's just insanely sharp looking. Sharper than the Epic or Alexa or F3 or F5 or F55 at 1080p and noticeably. From what I've seen, C500 has a razor thin OLPF and the Q7 has aggressive debayering so the 4k image from the C500 is sharper looking than a 5k or 6k Red image but it has significantly more aliasing, but not objectionable. Both cameras have similar DR. RAW doesn't seem to provide much improvement there over ProRes, but better shadows than the internal codec for complex scenes.
The C500 is basically a C300 with extra features if you use a raw recorder,  so if money is no issue and you WANT to use an external recorder (I hate them) get the C500 instead. If you plan to crop or stabilize, 4k could be useful for 1080p delivery, though personally I'd (almost) never shoot 4k and if you don't crop or stabilize the 1080p output will actually look sharper, shockingly. But maybe not in a good way. The Alexa is softer, but... "smooth." But you gotta experiment with the Q7 workflow when you shoot raw. When it's set up wrong to record ProRes FROM raw, it can induce chroma clipping and aliasing you wouldn't get in the C300 or C500 alone. And shooting actual raw IMO is not worth the trouble (then again I don't think 4k is either). 
I dunno. Rent for sure, but  think the 4.6k is Ursa Mini Pro sounds like the camera for you. It can alias, even worse than the C500, but in practice I haven't seen much of it. Maybe there's less sharpening to make the aliasing pop. Maybe I just haven't worked with it much. Dunno.

I agree that the highlights are intentionally blown in order to gauge dynamic range and rolloff, but I don't agree with you at all that chroma clipping isn't a serious issue. Especially on a camera like the C500 that has less dynamic range than an Alexa or Dragon (but still good and better than its reputation), you can't always expose for the highlights. There are going to be traffic lights, headlights, practicals, blown out skies, etc. in some scenes and avoiding them at all costs or underexposing horribly isn't a viable option. IMO, you cannot make all camera systems look good, otherwise they would look good more often. Most digitally acquired content–even on the high end–doesn't look as consistently good as film, even with the same crew. Only the Alexa seems to get close imo, though I have seen some good looking content shot with other cameras, of course, and some "intentionally digital" looks that work. A friend of mine had a piece graded by Stefan Sonnenfeld, and I remember he mentioned that chroma clipping was Stefan's biggest bugaboo re: camera systems. I won't get into the details because I don't want to put words in someone's mouth, but if the greatest colorist in history struggles to wrangle with chroma clipping, it's a problem, and you'd better hope you're the greatest DP in history to never blow out a single source. Or just use a camera that handles chroma clipping properly. (Fwiw, I don't find hard luma clipping problematic if one grades the knee nicely, and even film appears to hard clip rather fast when processed photochemically–so this is a discussion about color space and rolloff, not dynamic range.)
And there is a massive difference between how the Alexa handles chroma clipping and how the C500/Q7 (as set up there) and F5 or pre-IPP2 Red etc. do. Sure, you can make an Alexa look bad if you're wildly incompetent. But I'd argue you can't light a scene with someone lit by a practical flare on an F5 or C500/Q7 (at least with the settings above, and the ones in the C500 footage I've worked with) without it looking too terrible to really fix in post, because the camera will blow out the highlights to red or to red and yellow, not to white, as with the Alexa (which clamps saturation at maximum at 30 IRE then slowly reduces it over its extremely wide dynamic range). With the Alexa, lighting that same scene well is as trivial as exposing roughly correctly. 
Of course you can to SOME extent avoid that kind of situation, or white balance to your practicals so they blow out more nicely assuming nothing else is blown out (dicey workflow, though). And if you record raw and process correctly this likely isn't an issue even with the C500. I'm just surprised that Canon Log has this problem far less severely than the C500/Q7S combo does, though I imagine there are settings that handle chroma clipping better. Some of the newer film emulation LUTs and even the SLOG3 colorspaces for F5/55/FS7 are fine in this regard, too, to be fair. As is IPP2 a huge improvement over Red's original pipeline. Canon Log, weirdly, has always been kind of good... there's the appearance of chroma clipping, but detail is almost never lost and the knee can be graded smoothly. Not so with any of the footage in the test above.
And all that said, I think most operators overexpose the CX00 series pretty substantially. And in practice this isn't a huge issue under normal circumstances. 

There's a wide-ranging misunderstanding of Nyquist sampling theory when it comes to images, and I think you might be following that widely-publicized misunderstanding. If not, my apologizes but I think it's such an interesting topic (which I was totally wrong about for years) that I will butt in:
Nyquist does not apply to image sensors how many people think it does. A 4k sensor actually CAN resolve a full 4K (well, technically anything less than 4k so 99.99%) signal, and fully. It's only Bayer interpolation and the presence of anti-aliasing filters that reduces this number in a meaningful way. 
What it boils down to is that a line pair represents a full signal wave. Yes, you can only fully capture less than 2048 line pairs in 4k without aliasing, as per Nyquist. But that's still 4096 lines. So... with a Foveon or monochrome sensor you can capture full 4k with no aliasing on a 4k sensor. Really! You can! (Assuming you also have a high pass filter with 100% mtf below 4k and 0% mtf above 4k. Which... doesn't exist... but still.)
The other point of confusion is the idea that a line pair on a normal resolution chart represents a sine wave. It doesn't. And THAT is 99% of the reason why there's aliasing on all these test charts. It represents a sawtooth wave, which has infinitely high overtones. So mtf should be measured with a sinusoidal zone plate only, as the Nyquist theorem applies to sine waves specifically (well, it applies to anything, but sawtooth waves are effectively of infinite frequency because they contain infinite high odd order harmonics). Since most resolution charts are lines–sawtooth–waves, rather than sinusoidal gradients, even the lowest resolution lines are actually of effectively infinite frequency. Which might be another reason why you see such poorly reconstructed lines and false colors around the very high contrast areas of the window in Yedlin's test in the other thread.
To that extent, the use of anti-aliasing filters is more just "whatever works" for a given camera to split the difference between sharpness and aliasing, and not correlated with Nyquist in any specific way. Bayer patterns I believe remove a little less than 30% of linear resolution, but in practice it looks a lot sharper than 70% sharpness due to advanced algorithms and due to aliasing providing the illusion of resolution... 
So the resolution issue requiring over-sampling is due to anti-aliasing filters and Bayer pattern sensors and balancing things out between them so you get a sharp enough image with low enough aliasing. It's not Nyquist eating half your spatial resolution. I'm no engineer by any means and I have made this mistake in the past and now feel guilty for spreading misinformation online.
Also, I'm normally an 8-bit-is-fine-for-me-and-probably-for-everyone type person, but for next generation HDR wide gamut content you need 10 bit color and a wide gamut sensor. I think Netflix is going for a future proof thing and perhaps it is due to legal. That is a very astute comment. It's not an aesthetic choice, but a legal one. Otherwise, anything could be called "true 4k." (Fwiw you can include small amounts of b cam footage shot on other cameras or even stock footage.)

IMO Blackmagic 4k definitely does not have an image up to Netflix standards. Gnarly fixed pattern noise, aliasing, poor dynamic range, etc. keep it away from serious use. If you are getting great images with it, more power to you, and it has its place. But I would rate that image quite low, below the 2.5k even and nowhere near what Netflix is looking for. The 4.6k is pretty good, though! I would expect they'd include it. Anyhow if you have any tips on getting a better image out of the BM4k I would be glad to hear them because I do use one from time to time and am admittedly a frustrated novice with it.
Marketing, not image quality, is definitely behind the Alexa's exclusion, imo. But yeah, technically the Alexa 4k is a little softer than the F55. The noise pattern feels a little wide, there's some hints of unsharp mask. It's great from a subjective perspective and would be my choice every time, but in the lab it would fail to meet their standards. But the thing is it doesn't matter unless Netflix is producing the show. They'll buy originals (tv shows and movies alike) that are shot at 1080p. So they would acquire a feature shot on the Alexa but not produce one. They'd acquire one shot on film but would not produce one. So feel free to shoot on film... if you're footing the bill and hoping Netflix will pick it up later, which they very well might.
Does the F55 have a different RAW output than the F5? Maybe it is the wide gamut BFA. That makes a lot of sense. When I first used the F5 (a month or two after its release so the firmware was early and you could tell) I thought the image was awful, but I used it again later with the Kodak emulation LUT a few years later and it's way better than it once was. I was recently working on a Netflix show that was shot on F55 RAW and again was not impressed with the image from a technical perspective or even the color didn't blow my mind but it did seem a lot better than the F5 (which I still dislike). Now that the footage is out there and I see the graded footage online, I think the footage looks very good, so the colorist did a good job and I was wrong about the F55 I think. It's possible Netflix knows what it's talking about, but I'm still surprised by how well the F55 holds up. (I would place it way above any Black Magic camera except maybe the newest 4.6k, for instance, but worse than the Alexa or Varicam and yet it seems to look just as good in the final product. F55 RAW is surprisingly good.)
Likewise, I rate the C500 poorly but above the F5 and FS700. But... at that point you're sort of picking arbitrarily. The C500 is sharper, cleaner, better color, slightly worse DR, maybe more aliasing? Not dramatically better by any means. Maybe it has the wide gamut BFA array they need and it's as simple as that.

I guess so, but I've always found the Alexa keyed a lot better than the Epic and F55. And that the cost of a fiber network plus storage and render times to support 4k pushed budgets up insanely high even for 2D work.
That's true, though. That's a fair point. On high end stuff the cost of the network and storage must become irrelevant. 

Even as a C300 fanboy (I love the ease of use), I agree that the F3 is a better cinema camera with a technically stronger image. The image isn't as sharp but it's more than sharp enough and otherwise it's better in every way except codec... and color is subjective. It has slightly better DR and 10 bit 444 out vs 422 8 bit out (though that's all Canon Log really needs). Same pixel pitch etc. as the Alexa I believe (very similar at least).
But rent it and try it out if you can. Coming from a dSLR, I couldn't deal with F3 ergonomics, especially when the C300 had 90% of the image in a much smaller form factor. I also liked the Canon colors a bit more, but the F3 has good color, not like later Sony cameras which are a very mixed bag.
If you're considering both, try both, but I'm a Canon fanboy who did not like the F5 but I still think the F3 is a steal. Plus, 60p! I also like the F35 but it's more trouble.

I don't think that's what people are saying. I think it's sort of the opposite. If you're working professionally you want to make sure you can justify the cost of the gear or else it's bad business. So there's no reason to buy an Alexa unless you can afford the crew to support it (and the roughly $100k investment up front)... and your revenue warrants it. Whereas if you're buying a camera as a hobbyist, your bank account (and credit) is the limit. I'd say spend more on other areas of the production, but if you have the money for a camera package and the rest of the production, go for it! 
I do think a bigger problem is that a dSLR or C300 or FS7 is a camera you can operate comfortably with a crew of one or two, whereas in my experience it's harder to shoot on Red on Alexa without a bigger camera department and a much bigger G&E department (the sensors are light-hungry). Particularly if you want to introduce more camera movement. And so that can add many thousands a day getting the additional crew and support gear, unless you have the ability to get people to work for free and have access to cheap rentals G&E and camera support. Frankly I find the Red MX and Epic to be a nightmare on fast-moving sets and very difficult to use as owner/op cameras, though to be fair I was using both of them a month or two after they first came out and they are a lot better now. This isn't meant as an anti-Red screed. The Alexa is just as bulky and requires a lot of battery swapping, too. It's also pretty slow, but the Amira is faster. I love the image from the Mini but not the ergonomics. They're all built for a bigger crew. 
So I think the hidden expense is the added cost in workflow and crew and time with some of those cameras, and that can add an additional five figures to the budget of a short easily... that is, if you're paying your crew and post team. But if you have that worked out, you've got it worked out. That's my only argument against getting a big expensive camera, but if you have that part worked out, go for it.
On the basis of image quality I'd put the 4.6k BM well above the MX well above the original 4k BM, which has a significantly worse image than the 2.5k. The  4k has the thinnest dynamic range and most fixed pattern noise I've seen in a cinema camera. But if you're used to shooting on film and lighting for film, you won't need any more light than that with any of these cameras, though you will need to be very careful managing your highlights on the 4k BM and to some extent on the MX.
What lens set do you own? Some lenses have strange corner performance with some cameras (I believe the Cooke Speed S2/S3s do with some Reds). I would rent all three cameras before buying anything. Anything with very oblique light rays in the corners can perform dramatically differently on different sensors and that won't be as apparent on a 2.5k converted to PL because of the smaller sensor only receiving the more direct rays.
But as for spending money on your hobby, do it! 99% of Porsche owners aren't professional race car drivers. Just get whatever is gonna make you happy. They're all nice cameras. You sound like you know what you want and to that extent can't really go wrong. I might envy you for having gobs of disposable money, but I think any of us would spend it just as irresponsibly if we had it.
 

I don't think that's what people are saying. I think it's sort of the opposite. If you're working professionally you want to make sure you can justify the cost of the gear or else it's bad business. So there's no reason to buy an Alexa unless you can afford the crew to support it (and the roughly $100k investment up front)... and your revenue warrants it. Whereas if you're buying a camera as a hobbyist, your bank account (and credit) is the limit. I'd say spend more on other areas of the production, but if you have the money for a camera package and the rest of the production, go for it! 
I do think a bigger problem is that a dSLR or C300 or FS7 is a camera you can operate comfortably with a crew of one or two, whereas in my experience it's harder to shoot on Red on Alexa without a bigger camera department and a much bigger G&E department (the sensors are light-hungry). Particularly if you want to introduce more camera movement. And so that can add many thousands a day getting the additional crew and support gear, unless you have the ability to get people to work for free and have access to cheap rentals G&E and camera support. Frankly I find the Red MX and Epic to be a nightmare on fast-moving sets and very difficult to use as owner/op cameras, though to be fair I was using both of them a month or two after they first came out and they are a lot better now. This isn't meant as an anti-Red screed. The Alexa is just as bulky and requires a lot of battery swapping, too. It's also pretty slow, but the Amira is faster. I love the image from the Mini but not the ergonomics. They're all built for a bigger crew. 
So I think the hidden expense is the added cost in workflow and crew and time with some of those cameras, and that can add an additional five figures to the budget of a short easily... that is, if you're paying your crew and post team. But if you have that worked out, you've got it worked out. That's my only argument against getting a big expensive camera, but if you have that part worked out, go for it.
On the basis of image quality I'd put the 4.6k BM well above the MX well above the original 4k BM, which has a significantly worse image than the 2.5k. The  4k has the thinnest dynamic range and most fixed pattern noise I've seen in a cinema camera. But if you're used to shooting on film and lighting for film, you won't need any more light than that with any of these cameras, though you will need to be very careful managing your highlights on the 4k BM and to some extent on the MX.
What lens set do you own? Some lenses have strange corner performance with some cameras (I believe the Cooke Speed S2/S3s do with some Reds). I would rent all three cameras before buying anything. Anything with very oblique light rays in the corners can perform dramatically differently on different sensors and that won't be as apparent on a 2.5k converted to PL because of the smaller sensor only receiving the more direct rays.
But as for spending money on your hobby, do it! 99% of Porsche owners aren't professional race car drivers. Just get whatever is gonna make you happy. They're all nice cameras. You sound like you know what you want and to that extent can't really go wrong. I might envy you for having gobs of disposable money, but I think any of us would spend it just as irresponsibly if we had it.
 

I don't think that's what people are saying. I think it's sort of the opposite. If you're working professionally you want to make sure you can justify the cost of the gear or else it's bad business. So there's no reason to buy an Alexa unless you can afford the crew to support it (and the roughly $100k investment up front)... and your revenue warrants it. Whereas if you're buying a camera as a hobbyist, your bank account (and credit) is the limit. I'd say spend more on other areas of the production, but if you have the money for a camera package and the rest of the production, go for it! 
I do think a bigger problem is that a dSLR or C300 or FS7 is a camera you can operate comfortably with a crew of one or two, whereas in my experience it's harder to shoot on Red on Alexa without a bigger camera department and a much bigger G&E department (the sensors are light-hungry). Particularly if you want to introduce more camera movement. And so that can add many thousands a day getting the additional crew and support gear, unless you have the ability to get people to work for free and have access to cheap rentals G&E and camera support. Frankly I find the Red MX and Epic to be a nightmare on fast-moving sets and very difficult to use as owner/op cameras, though to be fair I was using both of them a month or two after they first came out and they are a lot better now. This isn't meant as an anti-Red screed. The Alexa is just as bulky and requires a lot of battery swapping, too. It's also pretty slow, but the Amira is faster. I love the image from the Mini but not the ergonomics. They're all built for a bigger crew. 
So I think the hidden expense is the added cost in workflow and crew and time with some of those cameras, and that can add an additional five figures to the budget of a short easily... that is, if you're paying your crew and post team. But if you have that worked out, you've got it worked out. That's my only argument against getting a big expensive camera, but if you have that part worked out, go for it.
On the basis of image quality I'd put the 4.6k BM well above the MX well above the original 4k BM, which has a significantly worse image than the 2.5k. The  4k has the thinnest dynamic range and most fixed pattern noise I've seen in a cinema camera. But if you're used to shooting on film and lighting for film, you won't need any more light than that with any of these cameras, though you will need to be very careful managing your highlights on the 4k BM and to some extent on the MX.
What lens set do you own? Some lenses have strange corner performance with some cameras (I believe the Cooke Speed S2/S3s do with some Reds). I would rent all three cameras before buying anything. Anything with very oblique light rays in the corners can perform dramatically differently on different sensors and that won't be as apparent on a 2.5k converted to PL because of the smaller sensor only receiving the more direct rays.
But as for spending money on your hobby, do it! 99% of Porsche owners aren't professional race car drivers. Just get whatever is gonna make you happy. They're all nice cameras. You sound like you know what you want and to that extent can't really go wrong. I might envy you for having gobs of disposable money, but I think any of us would spend it just as irresponsibly if we had it.
 

I don't think that's what people are saying. I think it's sort of the opposite. If you're working professionally you want to make sure you can justify the cost of the gear or else it's bad business. So there's no reason to buy an Alexa unless you can afford the crew to support it (and the roughly $100k investment up front)... and your revenue warrants it. Whereas if you're buying a camera as a hobbyist, your bank account (and credit) is the limit. I'd say spend more on other areas of the production, but if you have the money for a camera package and the rest of the production, go for it! 
I do think a bigger problem is that a dSLR or C300 or FS7 is a camera you can operate comfortably with a crew of one or two, whereas in my experience it's harder to shoot on Red on Alexa without a bigger camera department and a much bigger G&E department (the sensors are light-hungry). Particularly if you want to introduce more camera movement. And so that can add many thousands a day getting the additional crew and support gear, unless you have the ability to get people to work for free and have access to cheap rentals G&E and camera support. Frankly I find the Red MX and Epic to be a nightmare on fast-moving sets and very difficult to use as owner/op cameras, though to be fair I was using both of them a month or two after they first came out and they are a lot better now. This isn't meant as an anti-Red screed. The Alexa is just as bulky and requires a lot of battery swapping, too. It's also pretty slow, but the Amira is faster. I love the image from the Mini but not the ergonomics. They're all built for a bigger crew. 
So I think the hidden expense is the added cost in workflow and crew and time with some of those cameras, and that can add an additional five figures to the budget of a short easily... that is, if you're paying your crew and post team. But if you have that worked out, you've got it worked out. That's my only argument against getting a big expensive camera, but if you have that part worked out, go for it.
On the basis of image quality I'd put the 4.6k BM well above the MX well above the original 4k BM, which has a significantly worse image than the 2.5k. The  4k has the thinnest dynamic range and most fixed pattern noise I've seen in a cinema camera. But if you're used to shooting on film and lighting for film, you won't need any more light than that with any of these cameras, though you will need to be very careful managing your highlights on the 4k BM and to some extent on the MX.
What lens set do you own? Some lenses have strange corner performance with some cameras (I believe the Cooke Speed S2/S3s do with some Reds). I would rent all three cameras before buying anything. Anything with very oblique light rays in the corners can perform dramatically differently on different sensors and that won't be as apparent on a 2.5k converted to PL because of the smaller sensor only receiving the more direct rays.
But as for spending money on your hobby, do it! 99% of Porsche owners aren't professional race car drivers. Just get whatever is gonna make you happy. They're all nice cameras. You sound like you know what you want and to that extent can't really go wrong. I might envy you for having gobs of disposable money, but I think any of us would spend it just as irresponsibly if we had it.
 

I haven't shot with the Ursa Mini Pro, but the footage I've seen from it and the projects I've worked on that were shot with it have looked really good. Like, really good. And people who own it love it.
I think the MX is cool and a real breakthrough, but I find Red's workflow demanding and it's OLD. The sensor itself is about a half generation behind the original C300 and to my eye the image isn't that much better... It's also really noisy under tungsten light, but everyone shoots daylight balanced these days anyway, or they tend to. But other cameras handle 3200K better. Red's current stuff is another story, of course, but so is the cost. The MX also needs a lot of light to look good.
While I agree with everyone who's suggesting that you either rent an Alexa or buy a dSLR instead, this is your hobby and the last thing you need is people telling you what you'll enjoy.  If you want to own the camera and shoot 4k, own the camera and shoot 4k.
 

Looks good. Tbh I think you could get the same effect in 2d just with black solids and screening the speculars back in. But of course for the whites of the eyes that would be trickier–any highlights over those would be harder to extract. Anyhow, no arguing with how that looks, it looks good.

While I like cool workflows, I think you're overthinking it. 
While that could be a good opportunity to play around with 3D, all you need to do is roto in black for the eyes and screen (or track) the extant catch lights back on. Or at most just use CC sphere in After Effects if you want some texture to the eye instead of pure black.

You can roto the eyes out (quickly in mocha) and luma key/screen the catch lights back on, which is even easier if you have strong catch lights in the first place. 

Thanks, @Jimbo and I agree with the approach you're taking. Wish I had more discipline, myself. The constant behind success seems to be focus. Ideally on the right thing! Which is why I need to figure out what I want in the first place. :/
@kaylee, I’m not signed anywhere for anything so I don’t have a clue. If anything, Tim’s advice (which rings true) is probably the best here. But I have a number of friends and friends of friends signed to major agencies. You need to look at it in terms of supply and demand. Maybe you have the commodity they want, maybe you don’t. If you do, they’ll sign you. It sounds to me like agency connections are the commodity you want, which isn’t necessarily a great start. 
Talent agencies have access to production value. They can put together a feature. What they need is a vision… at least an idea. Maybe it’s visual (say what you will about Michael Bay, but that guy can shoot) or emotional (Spielberg) or conceptual (Dan Harmon or Charlie Kaufman). Maybe you're just a competent director, or writer, or good looking actor. They can use that. They’ll provide the rest. If you're signed on something visionary, they’re basically going to ask you to remake your good idea with good production value. Your first gig after you’re signed will be essentially remaking whatever got you signed–this time with proper production value. It's not for everyone. Most people I know who get signed hate it.
But a lot of what we’re focusing on at this site is how to get that production value without an agency behind us. And we have to ask ourselves why isn’t anyone funding our idea if it’s so great. And we also need to ask ourselves, if our idea is so good, why does it need all that production value just to get noticed. If you can answer this question–and maybe your idea really is legitimately ahead of its time or so personal or crazy you can only express it on your own and you need to make it to even express its potential–then focus on that aspect of it which makes it so good and yet so unfamiliar, exciting (to you), and new. As David Lynch would say:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4468dVu_PaM
The donut, ideally, is what got you into this field in the first place! Anyhow, maybe I’m just writing myself a pep talk. But don’t focus on all the things you know can go wrong (still use your knowledge constructively or you might get in over your head) or all the tangential interests or gear you want to involve unless you’re exploring a new technique relating to certain gear specifically, and if you are, just focus on that one technique. (Like a stunning low light video or hyper lapse or motion control video.) Don’t add technical complications unless they’re crucial to the concept (but, like, get good sound and decent performances). Peter Jackson talks about how he wouldn’t have even made the films he first made if he knew what he knows now about filmmaking. He’d be too worried about what goes wrong (the hole) instead of what he wants to say (the donut). Spielberg seems to direct worse the more closely involved he is as a producer, or the more his financial obligations as a producer escalate. Even those guys don’t need those voices in their head. So get your other voices out of your head. You don’t have to impress every audience. What people on this forum want is not always gonna be what talent agencies want. Pleasing a given audience is a worthy goal. But pleasing every audience is going to put your work in a narrow cross-section or reduce it to lowest common denominator. Maybe it fits. There’s populist stuff that’s amazing. But if your vision is more peculiar maybe choose your audience as narrowly. David Lynch himself doesn't have a big audience relative to his fame, but his fearlessness lends to his cult status within that audience. 
Or if you just want to get signed or get into a festival for the sake of accomplishment or career then watch exactly what they’re producing or accepting and emulate it better and better and network harder and harder every year. This can work. If you're submitting to a festival without attending it first or watching a large portion of its prior programming it's like asking someone out without having a conversation first. Whether you get rejected or not, it's gonna probably end up weird. I don’t think that scene is for me anyway. Too shy. :/
Fwiw I've seen that web series thing work. I think there were four episodes. They were good! Made for pretty cheap, I think. And weird. 
Lastly, I saw a YouTube video where a successful writer mentioned that just because you have one grand idea doesn't mean you need to tell that story first. As much as focus matters, it needn't be on your magnum opus. Even if that opus is your donut of donut, maybe there are some good donut holes (not the figurative hole, but a figurative donut piece carved from the... never mind).
Maybe take some other simpler ideas to start with and just have fun with those first. Plus, Gall's Law and all. Keep it simple to start.

Thanks, @Jimbo and I agree with the approach you're taking. Wish I had more discipline, myself. The constant behind success seems to be focus. Ideally on the right thing! Which is why I need to figure out what I want in the first place. :/
@kaylee, I’m not signed anywhere for anything so I don’t have a clue. If anything, Tim’s advice (which rings true) is probably the best here. But I have a number of friends and friends of friends signed to major agencies. You need to look at it in terms of supply and demand. Maybe you have the commodity they want, maybe you don’t. If you do, they’ll sign you. It sounds to me like agency connections are the commodity you want, which isn’t necessarily a great start. 
Talent agencies have access to production value. They can put together a feature. What they need is a vision… at least an idea. Maybe it’s visual (say what you will about Michael Bay, but that guy can shoot) or emotional (Spielberg) or conceptual (Dan Harmon or Charlie Kaufman). Maybe you're just a competent director, or writer, or good looking actor. They can use that. They’ll provide the rest. If you're signed on something visionary, they’re basically going to ask you to remake your good idea with good production value. Your first gig after you’re signed will be essentially remaking whatever got you signed–this time with proper production value. It's not for everyone. Most people I know who get signed hate it.
But a lot of what we’re focusing on at this site is how to get that production value without an agency behind us. And we have to ask ourselves why isn’t anyone funding our idea if it’s so great. And we also need to ask ourselves, if our idea is so good, why does it need all that production value just to get noticed. If you can answer this question–and maybe your idea really is legitimately ahead of its time or so personal or crazy you can only express it on your own and you need to make it to even express its potential–then focus on that aspect of it which makes it so good and yet so unfamiliar, exciting (to you), and new. As David Lynch would say:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4468dVu_PaM
The donut, ideally, is what got you into this field in the first place! Anyhow, maybe I’m just writing myself a pep talk. But don’t focus on all the things you know can go wrong (still use your knowledge constructively or you might get in over your head) or all the tangential interests or gear you want to involve unless you’re exploring a new technique relating to certain gear specifically, and if you are, just focus on that one technique. (Like a stunning low light video or hyper lapse or motion control video.) Don’t add technical complications unless they’re crucial to the concept (but, like, get good sound and decent performances). Peter Jackson talks about how he wouldn’t have even made the films he first made if he knew what he knows now about filmmaking. He’d be too worried about what goes wrong (the hole) instead of what he wants to say (the donut). Spielberg seems to direct worse the more closely involved he is as a producer, or the more his financial obligations as a producer escalate. Even those guys don’t need those voices in their head. So get your other voices out of your head. You don’t have to impress every audience. What people on this forum want is not always gonna be what talent agencies want. Pleasing a given audience is a worthy goal. But pleasing every audience is going to put your work in a narrow cross-section or reduce it to lowest common denominator. Maybe it fits. There’s populist stuff that’s amazing. But if your vision is more peculiar maybe choose your audience as narrowly. David Lynch himself doesn't have a big audience relative to his fame, but his fearlessness lends to his cult status within that audience. 
Or if you just want to get signed or get into a festival for the sake of accomplishment or career then watch exactly what they’re producing or accepting and emulate it better and better and network harder and harder every year. This can work. If you're submitting to a festival without attending it first or watching a large portion of its prior programming it's like asking someone out without having a conversation first. Whether you get rejected or not, it's gonna probably end up weird. I don’t think that scene is for me anyway. Too shy. :/
Fwiw I've seen that web series thing work. I think there were four episodes. They were good! Made for pretty cheap, I think. And weird. 
Lastly, I saw a YouTube video where a successful writer mentioned that just because you have one grand idea doesn't mean you need to tell that story first. As much as focus matters, it needn't be on your magnum opus. Even if that opus is your donut of donut, maybe there are some good donut holes (not the figurative hole, but a figurative donut piece carved from the... never mind).
Maybe take some other simpler ideas to start with and just have fun with those first. Plus, Gall's Law and all. Keep it simple to start.

I guess I can't relate to the genius part, but otherwise I know what you mean. Fwiw, a no budget short can get attention. I've seen it happen. Little projects that are very modest by this site's standards getting people signed to CAA, etc. and resulting in seven-figure feature deals almost immediately. 
I've been very interested lately in what online communities in past years have birthed significant mainstream talents. YouTube has launched a host of actors but fewer filmmakers (which makes sense given the platform). Vimeo has launched a few filmmaking careers, but even fewer than it seems. Vimeo is sort of the new festival scene: very cool to be part of and show off on, but deceptively hard to leverage toward getting in somewhere lucrative unless you're already in somewhere lucrative through other means and just need to manufacture visibility.
But with YouTube, by the time you're Markliplier or Pewdiepie, by the time you're being begged to produce your own show you're already making millions a year... and you can get to be those guys organically. 
YouTube is the stronger platform. By far. For in front of the camera talent, not directors, though. :/ Where do directors go to shine?
I haven't seen a lot of new talent emerging from Reduser, etc. though there are some established all stars there already and great discourse. Communities that existed earlier than that are very interesting, though. A lot of directing talent emerged from dvxuser, though many of the users there were behind handles and didn't publicize their success so much once they went mainstream or their connection to that site was since forgotten. But a number of very slick visual filmmakers started there. Not slick by this site's standards, but hey, they were shooting on minidv. Super talented people.
The other community that launched a ton of talent is Channel101. They were big on dvx100s, too, but the production values there are poor by comparison. Intentionally so. But the writing is GREAT on that site. Better than on most commercial content. A lot of incredibly talented writers and comedians started their careers there with content that was messy and cheap but brilliantly written and conceived and with amazing storytelling. Of any community, that was the most impactful.
None of these talents started rich.
What does this say? That if you have all the money in the world it doesn't help unless you can create something great. So if you have a great eye or are a great writer, pretty soon someone with all the money in the world will hire you! It also says that storytelling is the most important talent of all, but technical skill is useful, too. And if you're rich, hire the best of both, collaborate. It's the tried and true method...
Which gets down the bigger point: both of those communities started around narrow goals: make something that looks good or make something that's funny. Commercial content is usually made by people with unbelievably narrow aptitudes. Like, someone who just shades fur but who shades fur REALLY well. Or someone who edits a certain kind of scene in a narrow subset of a genre. A guy who lights cars. But REALLY freaking well. Even the hottest directors are those with known and inimitable styles. And they're all working together in a slow, inefficient, but highly effectively system nonetheless that combines all their talents into something greater than the sum of their parts (ideally). That's why people get signed to CAA for their short films: either they show they can do something no one else can do or that they can mimic what someone else can do that there's a supply for. That's it. Again, narrow skill sets. Used to create a bigger product.
This site doesn't cater to that kind of person. This is a site for people who want to know how to do it all. And do it all for cheap. This site is for punks. For rebels.
And no surprise it's harder to launch a brilliant career on that, even if "that" includes a skill-set encompassing many potentially lucrative careers, if narrowly applied.
So the question is, why do we think this way? Why are we thinking with so many brains when all we need is one good one?
Broad as our interests get, they always begin with one dream. One thing we want to communicate. One idea that would be impossible to realize due to money, due to narrow-minded investors, due to how slowly commercial sets run, due to how big or slow older cameras are or how outmoded productions technique can be. Conventional wisdom says it's impossible. But we're still dead set on learning how to make it possible. So we learn and learn and learn. We post here. Read here. Post elsewhere. Read elsewhere. Absorb tech. Absorb culture. See where they meet. We're the Steve Jobses (or Kanye Wests), seeing where technology and culture are heading and where they intersect and ignite. We see the big picture no one else sees. But we're also very cursed. Cursed because we can only show other people what we see by painting it ourselves.
And yet we're getting caught up squabbling over which brush to use.
This site is where we explore our interests, sure. But it's those interests that brought us here in the first place. They don't emerge from this community. You know what you need to do now because you knew before. That's the problem with resources like this: passions trickle down into tangential debate. That original passion is diverted into tribal politics, when we should just be taking information as information and opinion as opinion.
You like a GH4, I like a C300. Our opinions vary and so do the goals that led us to be so passionate about such silly things as that. We didn't get started because we liked GH4s or C300s. We got started because we had big, brilliant, original goals. And those goals aren't silly. What if Steve Jobs got stuck on a messageboard debating what brand of a certain component to use in the Macintosh instead of making the Macintosh? There are hundreds of thousands of GH4 users out there (I'm guessing). There's only one you. And you picked the camera up because you wanted to do something with it. It's not about the camera. It's about you. 
This website brings people together but it distracts us from what brought us here in the first place. Its strength is the talent and motivation of its members; its weakness is that same passion being wasted on bickering and self-doubt. There's a wealth of information, and we came for that. Let's take it and leave the rest behind. The other brains. The other voices.
In moments like these I think we need to ask ourselves: what, exactly, do you want to do? Why did you get into this field in the first place? What do you need to know in order to do it.
Find out.
Then do it.