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As this is a once-in-a-lifetime thing, and you'll likely be overwhelmed with the logistics of using a camera you've never used before + a format you've never used before + a cost per second you've never experienced, my suggestion is to keep it simple and keep it meaningful. My suggestion for lenses.... Go to a rental house and tell them what you're doing and get their recommendations. I'd suggest lenses that are neutral in look, easy to use, reliable, and probably not too heavy / expensive. Perhaps something classic like a set of Zeiss Super Speeds (which were popular for a reason!) etc. My suggestion for shooting..... As this is a never to be repeated thing, I'd suggest shooting people and places and subjects you love. Not only will this be a lower-stress approach, but you'll end up with lots of images that will be relevant for the rest of your life, and perhaps longer for friends and family. Completely secondarily to this, shooting a range of different things will be fun, and it will also be great if you want to nerd out and pixel pee etc, as you'll have a range of different subjects and scenes.

I watched a great video talking about Christopher Doyles contributions in working with Wong Kar-Wai (I'll post below) and there's a great line in there where Doyle basically says (when comparing his films to Hollywood blockbusters) "I think we have absolutely opposite attitudes to what's film-making. We make the film we can, they buy the film they think they want" (around 5:00 mark) When talking about small budgets and tight timeframes these films are often a lot more like my own travel videos than a Hollywood blockbuster. In my videos I shoot on-location with available lighting and no control over the scene whatsoever. In some ways I am capturing something that is more authentic, because I'm not constructing sets or rigging lighting that might deviate from the actual location, but this also means I have less flexibility to work around the camera etc (where sometimes cheating things makes them look more normal rather than less), and it requires me to capture things in a way that more authentically depicts the location rather than including/excluding things in a way that's not balanced or authentic. Obviously these lower budget films are still working with lighting, (probably) closed sets and production design, but they're not constructing everything from scratch on a soundstage in a warehouse in Burbank. In the video he talks about how because they filmed in real locations the actors were responding to their surroundings in an authentic way, rather than having to pretend they're somewhere that they're actually not: "The environments that the two worked in dictated the movement, emotion, rhythm, and transformation of those locations into an active force within each film. The physical surroundings were always used to shape psychological states. Hong Kong becomes the central site of this transformation." This idea of filming on location and letting the day-to-day (and perhaps moment-to-moment) shooting experience influence the acting and filming reminds me of what Noam Kroll preaches, which (to me) is really the fundamental advantage of the low-budget film. Wong Kar-Wai sometimes wrote the next days scripts the night before, which means they could adapt to how shooting was going and the weather etc. With the technological advances (film getting faster and not needing lighting / 16mm cameras that were light enough to use without a tripod / on-location sound then sync sound / digital) that enabled Italian Neorealism / French New Wave / British New Wave / Dogme 95 it's all about it getting smaller/lighter/cheaper, so taking these advantages and then still doing a full pre-production cycle then rigidly shooting to that in prod is really just throwing away much of the new potential that technological advancement has delivered.

Not even in 4K! It's like they've never watched a single YT tutorial on how to make their footage cinematic.

I think your criticisms of Resolve are quite relevant and justified, and perhaps the most significant thing (apart from the overwhelming user experience when first learning it) is the workflow. If you want a straight-forward experience then I think it's all about workflow. Depending on how you are thinking about it, I think there's two overall philosophies you have to choose from: Make it work the way you think things should be done, and don't support other ways (or even be openly hostile to them) Try and make it as flexible as possible so people can choose their own workflows I have had significant issues with the way that Resolve limits things, which are stuck in the workflows that began in the days of celluloid. It's not that it doesn't let you do things your own way, as mostly it does, but 'their' way will involve a single shortcut key that is mapped by default, and 'my' way often involved seven functions and perhaps some of them couldn't even be assigned to a shortcut key at all. If that's a thing that you do per-shot, or per-cut, then that's game over for that workflow - they may as well have not bothered. If you're going for the latter, then you'll need to reach out to people with vastly different workflows and mindsets and then let them use your tool and see where the limitations and faffs are for them. I have a lot of experience in IT and the only thing you can really count on is that some users will do things that seem completely bananas to you until they are given a chance to explain things (which often requires them explaining what their world looks like). Even if you're going with the first one, if you are then I'd suggest be clear about it and don't get distracted with anything else. Half-supporting a different workflow won't do either you or the people who work like that any good and is just a waste of time.

Not the CN-E 31.5-95mm T1.7 zoom? 😆😆😆 I suspect that I'd likely want to go as clean as I can afford, because the situations are amongst the most brutal possible with huge DRs from strong light sources in frame and the associated coma/smearing/etc that happens. Almost every lens I have used looks controlled in normal high-DR situations (ie, daytime exteriors in direct midday sun) but start to look 'vintage' when out in the streets at night. I don't generally take stills of frames with lots of issues, but this starts to hint at the territory I'm describing - the below is the 12-35mm F2.8 zoom on the BMPCC. This has no promist filter on it, this is just the lens itself. It's not the most clinical lens in the world wide-open, but if it performed like this on normal scenes then people would have cancelled it as being unusable, yet here the bloom extends half the height of the frame! The images from the Voigt 42.5mm F0.95 + Sirui combo seem to be pretty good across the frame, like this one where the text seems pretty clear even on the edges of the frame: but even in shots that don't have high DR, the Takumar 50/1.4 doesn't do a good job on the extreme edges: Maybe the woman posing bottom left is slightly behind the focal plane, but even then the softness looks like lens aberrations and not just being out of focus, even with my crazy rectangular / moon-shaped bokeh. Using the Takumar I found that I was composing images with the subject at the centre (or near to it) whereas I don't remember feeling like that with the Voigt+Sirui combo. I'd certainly like to feel more free to compose how I want. I hear you on the character of the bokeh, I find some lenses to have quite objectionable bokeh, and in my tests with the Tak I found it highly variable actually, with the character changing depending on the focus distance and distance to the things being blurred. I realise I'm really pushing things here to the limits, which is pretty much normal for me, but I feel like there's a lot of experimentation still ahead, once I can justify the investment required. Plus I can always dirty things up in post if they're too clean, the Film Look Creator really changes the game in that sense. I'm also looking at shots like this of Myongdong in Seoul and thinking that maybe this is too crowded for such a long focal length and a wider lens might also be useful:

I could even sacrifice a small amount of aperture and go with the Sigma 50-100mm F1.8 zoom (equivalent to a 64-128mm F2.3), which would have all the benefits of a zoom. It's a pity there isn't a mid-range offering in that series so I could go both wider and longer than the 50mm mark. There's always the Canon CN-E 31.5-95mm T1.7 zoom, which would be perfect if it wasn't 7.8lbs / 3.5kg, enormous, and USD24,000!

Thanks for the info. They're definitely not for everyone, but I'm more than comfortable using them and all the associated math. I'm even a fan of the in-between focal lengths. I discovered that I absolutely adore shooting with my 42.5mm F0.95 lens paired with my Sirui 1.25x anamorphic adapter, and that's equivalent to a 68mm F1.5 lens on FF. 50mm would be too wide and 85mm too long - so the fact that FF lenses are exactly 50mm or 85mm on FF is actually a disadvantage for me. The economics of it are also pretty straightforward, I can get one of these for half of what a Panasonic S9 or OG S5 would cost, and it means I don't have to carry around two bodies etc either. I think focal reducers and adapters and front anamorphic adapters all provide a myriad of potentially interesting options, which I brought up in the Adapters are BACK.. and better than ever! thread. The main candidate would be a 50mm F1.4 to be a 64mm F1.8 equivalent lens for shooting "night cinema". This would be to replace my M42 Takumar 50mm F1.4 + SB combo (which is very vintage and has distracting bokeh and isn't great on the sides) and the 42.5mm F0.95 + Sirui 1.25x combo (which is heavy and also isn't great on the sides). Between Canon and Sigma and Zeiss I'm sure there will be a range of lenses that are as pristine as I'm willing to pay for. I've found that the 65-70mm range is really great for crowded street work like markets etc where you can shoot a range of compositions from wides to portraits to macros, and is also great for shooting wider shots on the other side of the street. I'm also wondering if a wider fast prime might be useful too, so maybe a 24/1.4 (which would be a 31mm F1.8 equivalent) or a 28/1.4 (which would be a 36mm F1.8 equivalent) might also be interesting but I feel like I'm just getting started with this style of shooting.

I'm idly contemplating buying a Metabones Ultra 0.64x speed booster for my GH7. This would take me into the world of EF for the first time. I'm completely familiar with speed boosting and crop factors and all that jazz, with years of experience from my 0.71x M42 to MFT speed booster and (many) M42 lenses. What's the deal with speed boosting to EF? Is the Ultra 0.64x worth it over the normal 0.71x adapter? (they seem to be similarly priced used). Is there a different one I should consider (other than Metabones)? Essentially I'd be getting it to shoot shallow DOF (like I do with my M42 Takumar 50mm F1.4, etc) but with more modern / cleaner results as M42 lenses are quite vintage and far dirtier than fast EF glass, especially when shooting wide open. AF is of little importance to me, so I'd be expecting manual focus.

Like almost everything of value! Seriously though, one of the best reality checks you can do is to find the all-time best examples of whatever you're doing and study them. When I did this it basically took almost every one of my previous references and relegated them to below 5/10, and made the 'most recent' on YT and streaming platforms look like toddlers playing with crayons.

100% - I'd assume that this was the best image that an expert with all the other associated equipment was able to get with a decent travel budget and after a decent period of having it. I've always maintained that there are three useful references for a piece of equipment: The best images that anyone is able to create This shows the upper limit of its potential The images that competent reviewers get This shows the type of images that people of moderate skill are able to get in non-ideal conditions The worst images You never get to see these until you get one yourself, but in theory this would show how fragile/flexible the camera is (for example you can expose an Alexa pretty horribly wrong and still get a half-decent image from it, but try that with a camcorder and it's a complete disaster) The promo is only the first category, and the fact there are only a few shots in there is a statement in itself. I think the 15mm is a lot better than people make out, but of course most discourse online is from people who think that a Zeiss Otus is the ideal lens and that Michael Bay doesn't use large enough apertures. To be honest, when reading / listening to most opinions now I am just hearing that the person hasn't been to the cinema for years, hasn't watched any/much classic cinema, and isn't even familiar with the saying "F8 and be there" let alone thinks that it is the cornerstone of almost all the important photography in the history of the field. I was always interested in the 9mm but as I bought the SLR Magic 8mm F4 as one of the first lenses I bought, then upgraded to the Laowa 7.5mm F2 lens later on, the selection of slow wider pancake lenses was never really justified for me. Right, I guess that makes the moon shot even easier then. If you have enough light then almost any camera will look pretty good. Looking at the mount again, there doesn't appear to be any visible mechanism to attach the lens.. I'm wondering if this might be a magnetic mount of some kind, like MagSafe perhaps. If that's true then it might just be a matter of pulling the lens off and snapping another one on. That would certainly fit with the GoPro ethos of it being a fast no-nonsense experience.

Could do, I guess there are options. One thing that comes to mind for the vlogger crowd is having a small manual focus that goes between two useful focal distances, like vlogging distance and normal infinity focus. This is how the Olympus 15mm F8 MFT pancake lens works, and it's surprisingly functional. It sort of sits in that middle-ground where you need to adjust focus because you can't get 30cm to infinity in focus at the same time (like a normal GoPro), but the DOF is still deep enough that you don't really need to have much control over it. In practice it's sort of like a switch where you're either at one end or the other. Looking at those GoPro sample shots, both the shallow DOF shots are relatively macro, so that doesn't need a large sensor or super-fast lens, but the moon shot might actually be the more difficult one requiring both a long focal length and also a larger aperture to get enough light. I don't really do astro-photography but the moon is approaching higher-ISOs I would imagine. Seriously though, there are probably 5-year-old android phones that could replicate both those images, so I'd suggest that most of what we're seeing is the hype and that GoPro shares the same definition of cinema that most YouTubers do.

All true, but the sample images from the promo video all have shallow DOF, so that means another kettle of fish entirely with AF and/or focus guides (peaking etc). I'd question if it might have lidar rather than PDAF etc, but it's a GoPro, so let's just assume it's 95% marketing and only 5% actual specs, like almost everything else about their cameras (no proper log profile, barely-passable bitrates, etc).

YM Cinema did an analysis of it: https://ymcinema.com/2026/03/18/gopro-next-gen-large-sensor-action-camera/ This image shows the sensor.. If we assume it's the same size as a normal GoPro (at around 70mm) then that looks like the sensor is about 20mm across, which is a crop factor of about 1.8, so very slightly larger than MFT. If the camera body is larger then it looks somewhere between MFT and APSC. Based on how far Apple has pushed its sensors with Apple Log and how far things like the GH7 etc are, there's the potential for genuine image quality. What there won't be however, is the potential for GoPro to go "oh, we'll just provide an adapter for you to mount any other manufacturers lenses on this bad boy!" and not cash in by providing an entire line of overpriced lenses to keep you locked in their 'ecosystem'.

It reminds me of how the people that do rug cleaning videos name their cleaning equipment. My favourite is this:

Wides are a completely different thing depending on the circumstances. If you're hand-holding and moving around for video it's a completely different beast than doing stills or doing video but on a tripod with very careful camera placement and subject movement etc. I also think it's pretty difficult to make wide angle lenses look professional - that demo from ARRI showcasing their ultra-wide zoom had more "amateur with an action camera" vibes than a shallow-DOF 85mm portrait shot from the standard video mode on a 5DII. This is the elephant in the room for amateurs - the pros choose equipment in support of the vision of the project whereas amateurs choose an aesthetic and then use it for completely inappropriate projects.

I'm back from Guangzhou China, and starting to evaluate the footage, especially my modified Takumar 50mm F1.4 with the custom "insert" made from post-it notes and sticky tape. I managed to get out and shoot with it on a couple of nights. One in Beijing Road and the other in Yong Qing Fang. Some images from Beijing Road... these are all wide open, and lightly graded with Resolve and Film Look Creator. Overall, I'm really liking the aesthetic, which reminds me of mid-budget Hong Kong cinema, which I have a soft spot for. I mostly exposed to protect the highlights and then adjusted exposure in post under the FLC, and the GH7 has just enough DR for this, despite the scenes being quite challenging. The lens has a shallow enough DOF to be able to direct the viewers attention by choosing what is in focus, and the FOV (equivalent to a 71mm F2.0 on FF) is great for these type of scenes where the scenes would mostly overwhelm a wide lens with pure chaos. Some images from Yong Qing Fang.. same as above but with a touch of sharpening. This was a lot darker and I needed to push the ISO to get more levels in some scenes. It was also a lot higher DR, so some shots will be limited in post for how I grade them and I'll probably reach for NR in places. The lens is actually quite sharp in the middle, but the sides are more distortion than I'd like with quite a bit of bokeh distortion and coma from bright sources. The experiment with this "insert" was how strong a look it would be and I think it's probably too strong because the bokeh shapes are too distracting due to the sharp corners. It's distracting on frames with a clear subject (where you want the background to get out of the way) and on other shots its pure chaos and completely negates the idea of directing where the viewer will look. Getting DOF this shallow on MFT isn't easy, so I'll have to think about it more for future trips.

I found an interview with the person who shot the under-water sections of a GoPro promo video (IIRC it was for the Hero 3 or 3+), and the level of effort they put into it was simply incredible. He had a team of about 5, three crew and two cast, and they had a week for production. He was an independent DOP and had done some pre-production as part of his 'pitch' to GoPro to get the gig, but I think they did detailed pre during the week as well as camera tests and lots and lots of shooting. This was only for the underwater shots (the bikini girl diving beneath the waves). If we assume that each of the (maybe half a dozen?) locations each got 5 people for a week, then that's ~7500 hours just to film the 1-2 minute promo video. The level of cherry-picking is extreme - professional DOPs pitching projects, travel to the most exotic locations, testing of all modes with all manner of equipment, everyone in cast and crew are professionals, long shooting days at the best times (golden hour, etc), dozens of hours of footage just to make a short promo. Then people set it to auto, hold the tiny camera in their hand and film their family at the beach with whatever lighting and weather happens to be there at the time and then we wonder why it doesn't look like the promo videos... Having said all that, if GoPro make an interchangeable lens camera with a half-decent bitrate and a colour-managed LOG profile then it might be the tiny camera we've been wanting!

This is awesome - thanks for sharing! What kind of DCTLs are you writing?

Doh - forgot to list the 9mm F1.7 lens. That's the ultra-wide I'll be taking too. So the total count is one body, 5 lenses, my phone with vND. I was slightly conflicted about the "wide-angle night cinema" slot. The SB+50/1.4 is equivalent to a 71mm F2.0 on FF, so having something wider seems an obvious thing but I'm just not sure if I would use it. I've mentioned the 12-35mm F2.8 as my night walk-around lens, and when combined with the GH7 low-light capability it's a fine combination, but it's not crazy fast/bright and isn't the best "cinema" option around. The things I considered were: my TTartsans 17mm F1.4, which is small and light and despite being soft wide-open is probably quite cinematic my 14mm F2.5 which is small and light but is bettered by the 12-35mm on flexibility grounds being a zoom my Voigtlander 17.5mm F0.95, which is a great performer but is quite heavy my c-mount 12.5mm F1.9, which is similar FOV when you crop in to its S16 image circle my 9mm F1.7 combined with the GH7 cropping, which is fast but sacrifices resolution and doesn't have the DOF advantages of other options (although I am already taking it) SB + 28mm F2.8 combos, but it's hard to get a reasonable quality 28mm F2.8 in M42 mount and it's not that fast anyway I opted to take the 12-35mm (which I sort-of take as a backup lens to the 14-140mm zoom) but if I do end up wanting a wider fast lens for night cinema, I think I might just bite the bullet and get the PanaLeica 15mm F1.7 as it'll be light and have AF and be sharper than I could ever want. I looked at the reviews of a bunch of budget F1.4 or faster lenses around the 14-20mm mark but I'd never be sure if it was as sharp as I'd like, and spending money to get something that isn't that much faster than my 17/1.4 or that much lighter than my 17.5/0.95 seems silly. MFT is the wrong format for ultra-fast wide lenses, and I already have lots of options for something I might not use, so the whole thing might end up being academic anyway.

Getting prepped for my next trip and have further refined my setup. This trip is a quick trip to China, but it's also a test case for a trip I'm taking later in the year to Europe where the packing approach will be minimalism. Unlike the way I like to travel in Asia, the Europe trip will involve changing accommodation every few days, so packing and unpacking and hauling bags around will be much more of a pain, so I'll try and travel really minimally. As such, my approach for this trip is "when in doubt, don't take it" and see what I actually use. So the setup for this trip is: GH7 14-140mm F3.5-5.6 zoom, which I use during the day at F5.6 which means my 1-5 stop vND is enough 12-35mm F2.8 zoom, which is a great walk-around lens after dark Takumar 50mm F1.4 with M42-MFT Speedbooster (with bokeh insert) for "night cinema" iPhone 17 Pro setup (Neewer phone filter mount, K&F 1-9 stop vND, MagSafe Popsocket) The GH7 and zooms are self-explanatory, so here's the 50mm F1.4 setup. I have played around with "inserts" and ended up with a pretty extreme design, so this is a test to see if the vertical edges are too strong a look for me. It's made from the sticky part of the post-it note, and a layer of sticky tape over the top to keep it a bit more together. It sits between the speed booster and the lens, and I won't use the speed booster for any other lenses while travelling so this will stay in there and protected, so doesn't need to be that robust. It's a strong look in some situations and quite "painterly" in others, so I'll be curious how it goes. For my iPhone 17 Pro, it's a phone most of the time and a camera only as a backup, so I searched for a setup that would: Protect my phone from drops (I dropped it on the last trip and the screen shattered, despite it being in an Apple case - the only one available at the time... sigh) Still be right-sized for getting in and out of pockets etc Have a vND solution for when I want to shoot and use 180 shutter I'll spare everyone from the rant about the options out there (everyone wants you to buy into their "ecosystem" now) so I ended up with the Otterbox Defender Series Pro case, which makes the iPhone feel even larger than it did in the Apple case (which doesn't seem possible but is true), but seems very robust. The vND is the Neewer phone filter mount, which sort-of clips onto the phone (It's designed to screw onto and clamp the phone but you're clamping against the screen, so I wouldn't tighten it that much). It's designed for a naked iPhone, so I had to modify it (and the Otterbox case) slightly where it interfered with the Otterbox case to get it to sit a bit flatter. It still doesn't sit flush, but it goes on and seems to be fine. I haven't got around to actually taking it out to shoot with it, so that remains to be seen. I paired it with the K&F 1-9 stop vND, which boasts 18 layers etc, but doesn't claim to be a "True Colour" one like the 1-5 stop ones do. It doesn't have hard stops and I think it still gives the X at the max amount, but I'll see how I go. Not having an aperture sure sucks considering you're not really losing having shallow DOF. That is all combined with the MagSafe Popsocket as a safeguard. I've used the adhesive popsockets before and they're great for giving a much better grip on the phone, but I wasn't sure how strongly the MagSafe would be. The Otterbox claims to have magnets in it that strengthen the MagSafe connection, and this might be true. It feels quite sturdy actually, and I tested it to require 1.75kg of force to pull off, compared to the 1.45kg of force it took to pull it off my naked iPhone 12 mini. No idea what strength a naked iPhone 17 Pro MagSafe connection would have, but it's not terrible. Lots of compromises involved, but it's really my backup camera, and the Otterbox case is very grippy, so I'll see how I go.

Come on John... everyone knows that anyone who wants better footage than a smartphone can provide is 100% totally fine with a camera the size of a microwave oven that looks like a Borg prototype! Being slightly serious though, it's easy to criticise, but as someone who wants flexibility and better sound options, this is FAR better than the previous options, so it's a welcome addition in my eyes. The worst enemy of progress is criticising everything that isn't perfect in every conceivable way.

Panasonic just released a new on-camera mic. Looks like an excellent option for events etc where you want something small or something really flexible. I've watched a few YT showcases and for me, the best features are: It gives you 32-bit without having to have the external mic preamp box (and then adding microphones to that, making it larger again) It's small, much smaller than an on-camera shotgun mic You can quickly swap between modes (I assume?) it's powered by the camera It unlocks the ability to record >2 channels of audio into the files (one person said you can record left/right/mono/mono-20dB as a combo, and left/right/left-20dB/right-20dB as a different combo) It's definitely not magic and the laws of physics still apply. There don't seem to be any really good on-location stress tests posted yet, but there's a few examples. Media Division did an in-kitchen test to compare it to in-camera mics and lav and a DJI clip-on, and also applied a bit of AI voice isolation too to see how far you can push it: Dustin did some good tests including walking a 360 around the camera in each mode, which showed how directional it is, which seems pretty impressive. He also compared it to the Sennheiser MKE440. This shows the different modes out in nature: This is probably a complete revolution for a number of niche uses. Content creators would be one, where they're recording in noisy environments but still staying relatively close to the camera where physics will be helping them. Another is where the flexibility really helps, like shooting events where getting pristine audio isn't an absolute must but working super-quickly is more important and perhaps the 32-bit would really come into its own. This reminds me of how people used to talk about Panasonic when the GH4 and GH5 were around and people were saying that Panasonic just listened to people and then implemented the features that people would use rather than trying to be flashy and grab headlines. This will be an invisible workhorse for lots and lots of people.

Nice! What formats and focal lengths is it compatible with? and what camera and taking lens combos are you planning to use with it?

My take on the situation is that I'm super-happy with the GH7. It basically does everything I want, and apart from having ultra-sharp ultra-shallow DOF, pretty much does most things that FF does. It does low-light very well, and is only behind the low-light from FF cameras because they have gotten crazy good.

I went with the GH7 as I'm video-first and need the heat management etc. The G9ii is an incredible camera though. There's a whole thread about it here: https://www.eoshd.com/comments/topic/90374-panasonic-g9-mark-ii-i-was-wrong/ Do you have either one?