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Benjamin Hilton

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  1. I really don't get the hype about phone cameras for cinema. No matter how you slice it, they are really expensive hard to use cameras for what they do. Like Kye broke down, the iPhone 15 can do an okay image at a basically fixed focal length and depth of field in bright light. Even with that, the image looks over sharp, and just weird in many cases. Don't get me wrong, I'm excited about the latest phone camera tech for personal use. The ability to pull my phone out of my pocket and get great photos and videos of my kids whenever I want is really nice. For that purpose, the quality looks great. But when it comes to shooting anything more serious, I could think of half a dozen cameras that are way cheaper, and would land you with much better looking, easier to capture, and more reliable results than a phone camera would. With an iPhone, how do you do a heavy handheld look? What do you do when the battery dies? How about overheating? Lowlight? Shallow depth of field? ND filters? Timecode? Audio? The list goes on and on... It's basically the wrong tool for the job. It's like the latest hatchback advertising how much lumber you can stuff in the trunk for your latest construction project. It's great if you need it every once and a while, but if you do construction seriously, any old cheap pickup truck from the 1980s will do a much much better/easier job.
  2. Totally an FX6 for me. I'd love for it to be an Alexa 35, but I know with the crazy amounts of content I have to produce on a daily basis it would be more of a hinderance than a help.
  3. I really do think there is something non-subjective to our current state of frame rates. This is coming from someone who likes to push the norms and who would have no problem filming in higher frame rates if I thought they looked good. As someone said earlier, I really think the motion blur of 24p emulates the dream state, it puts us into a state of believing the world we are immersed in as fake as it actually is. 30p is smoother and more realistic, but realistic has its downsides. If I wanted my films to look realistic there are a heck of a lot of things I would do differently other than frame rate. To me, content shot in 60-120p look nauseating and fake, I can't stand the look personally. I know this is somewhat subjective, but there are quite a few film goers that experience this. 30p looks realistic, but watchable. I run a fairly successful YouTube channel with news commentary studio style and we opt to shoot 30p for most of that content. 24p just looks magical, dream like, immersive. I shoot all of my cinematic documentaries and more dramatized emotional content this way. At the end of the day this isn't about conserving or progressing. The looks are different, they do different things to the viewers. People keep saying that we need to leave the old ways behind and "progress" to higher frame rates. Progression is fine, but when you want to change something that has been working for generations, the burden of proof falls on you to prove the progression is actually better. Many successful directors have tried this with the examples others have mentioned, and overall it seems like people have not appreciated the experiment.
  4. Still been rocking the S1 and GH5s for a lot of content this year. Finally mixed it with some Canon R7 which I'm really liking. Lower dynamic range and noisier image than the S1, but the autofocus and a lens adapter ND filter has made me reach for it more and more. Just hating in front of the lens NDs more and more these days. Our S1 finally just quit on us, so looking at hopefully re-doing our whole system, really been needing to for a while. Just bought a Sony a7 IV and lens, hoping to eventually pair that with another one and a FX6, along with a couple more e-mount lenses. That should set us up for a while I think. We have to work really fast, so practical considerations are starting to matter more and more these days. Hence the FX6 idea.
  5. Yeah, test test test. I don't have a lot of experience with the original a7s, but I'd imagine nailing your white balance and exposure will help you out a lot. Seems to go a really long way with the older mirrorless cameras.
  6. Yeah I had the same concern watching YT reviews before I bought an R7, I think it's mainly the users though, not the camera. I have both the R7 and the Lumix S1 plus som GH5s. Definitely a bit lower DR on the Canon compared to the S1, but not a big deal overall. Watching where you put your exposure and doing a good rolloff curve in post is much more important than actual numbers in my opinion when it comes to DR though. Seems pretty close to the GH5s IMO
  7. I know the feeling...not a m4/3 fan myself, but the feeling of an era coming to an end with letting go of beloved camera systems. For me it was my FS100, I got so much out of that camera over hundreds of projects it still holds a special place of nostalgia in my heart, even though it was technically a terrible camera in many ways.
  8. Honesty stuff like this makes me wish Apple would take their phone processing and put it into a super 35 sensor one of these days...Can you imagine if we had modern smart phone processing in a quality Sony chip?
  9. Yeah totally. I would venture to guess though that they put in more effort trying to shoot on an iphone for Tangerine than they would have put in with literally any camera. Plus they couldn't have replicated the look with literally any other camera and a decent colorist. It was basically about the unique idea, which is fine, just not a good reason to shoot other projects on a phone, unless you are getting paid by Apple or something to do it
  10. Kind of like Gerber dropping commercials "proving" they can build a house with a multi tool. You probably can, but if you are going to all the trouble of building, for goodness sake go out and buy yourself a real drill and tape measure. You'll thank yourself a thousand times over.
  11. That's kind of the thing. Phones can look great, but overall are really tough to film anything serious with. For stuff like Kye is doing and with the right post processing, they can look great. But for more serious narrative or doc work, they are really the wrong tool for the job. Weird HDR, internal storage limitations, overheating, warpy stabilization, hard to manual focus, lens limitations, ND filter hangups, the list goes on and on. If it's all you have, use it. But I would never recommend buying a phone as a camera specifically. You can basically sink that $600-800 into any basic DSLR setup and not only get a better image, but also save yourself a world of headache with actual usability.
  12. This is 100% spot on. I have a workflow I use for specific cameras. My standard color science is dropped onto my 5" monitor via LUT. In post I apply the same color science with minimal corrections. Sometimes I go on to do a specific grade, but 90% of the time I stick with that because it looks fantastic. This workflow is really awesome because I can really trust what I see on the monitor and fix problems in camera as I go.
  13. IBIS is way too useful of a tool to give up. It's not a replacement for anything, all old school tools still have their place, it's just another really useful tool at times. For doc work I can't tell you how many times I would have killed to have some form of IBIS on a shot and didn't have it back in the day. I do steadicam and tripod work a lot, but I can't tell you how amazing it has been to be able to grab a shot at 200mm with the camera balanced on my knee or pressed up against a wall and it actually look rock solid with IBIS.
  14. I shoot and edit professional content all day long. While I would love to upgrade to a Red Komodo, or Fx6 or something, I'm still using GH5s, G85s, an S1, etc because I can't really justify the costs of upgrading. It would be fun, but I know the films I'm working on would be much better off dropping that 10k into production instead of gear. I just shot an entire $50k doc on an S1 and Canon R6 and am totally happy with the final look. Realistically I think if I get a new camera in the next couple of years, it will be a FS7 or something. Solid image like the S1, just beautiful ergonomics for doc work. Every time I use one it just feels like driving a luxury car... Not necessarily a good business decision, but purely for the joy of use. Not so hard of on the wallet thankfully used these days too. While upgrading gear is really fun, I think at the end of the day sticking with the same stuff for years on end is the best thing you can do for your image quality, especially if you are working with something decent (like anything made in the last five years)
  15. I think one side to this whole thing is the fact that for some of us we focus on the other aspects of the business all day long: business, pitching, writing, editing etc. Sometimes having a place to discuss cameras and lights and stuff is just plain fun and relaxing, somewhat pointless, but fun nonetheless.
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