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LOL, yes, that might have given some of it away. I'm interested in the lenses and other bits and pieces too Edit: the more people do something the more that they refine and understand it, so I'm always keen to hear from travel film-makers to get tips and ideas

I'm kind of coming around to this from a different perspective - that of evaluating lenses by their area of worst performance rather than cherry-picking their best. There are absolutely lenses that will resolve 100MP somewhere in the frame under perfect conditions. But what about the corners? and what about CA? and what about halation? If a lens resolves as much as a 100MP sensor in the middle, but edges with contrast have CA still visible when you downscale the image to 1080p (2MP) then is it really still a 100MP lens? and wouldn't adding more resolution in the middle simply make it more obvious that the flaws are so much less? If you check out the images I posted in the other thread, you'll see that the $40,000 Master Anamorphic has CA still visible in a 1080 frame (and it was still visible in the 720 frame I didn't bother to upload) so what are we really talking about? I used to think of the Helios as a charming lens because it was so imperfect, but the truth is that even in 720p some of the best cine lenses available are still a bit like the Helios. Most things in life are hard to see from a huge distance away, and look nice from a sensible distance, but when you get right up close the flaws become visible and the magic kind of fades. I'm beginning to think that with lenses you want to capture the image well enough to see it clearly but not so well it just points out all the flaws. and that happy medium seems to occur around 2-4K.

Nice job! I watched this when you posted it to YT (I subscribed and now can't remember who is who in my feed, so you got stealthily included in my evening watching) and my impressions were that it was an interesting departure from the normal travel films that are kind of trying to emulate a postcard crossed with a music video. The raw feel added to the piece I think, creating more contrast and showing a more complete picture of the country. I've found that every place has its pros and cons and to only focus on one aspect of a culture or society always kind of feels false in some way. I particularly enjoyed the shot of the priest looking down the lens and the combination of the top of his swing with the speed-ramp and the music created a really great moment. The drone shots of the herd of sheep were stand-out moments as well. What equipment did you use?

If anyone knows of any lenses that are 6K wide-open to go with my new P6K / S1H / F6 camera or 8K lenses for my F8 then please let me know. Must be under 100Kg and budget is limited to the GDP of a small island nation.

Is it just me, or is the resolution of coming out of cameras about a billion miles ahead of the resolution of our lenses? and, to be clear, what I mean by that is: the limits of a sensor are typically around one quarter of the number of RAW pixels being read off the sensor (eg, 4K is really only 1080p 4:4:4) the limitations of a codec are the size of fine detail that is obscured by the compression, either in high-contrast areas (like stray hair against a dark background) or in low-contrast areas (like the texture of hair or skin in shadow areas) the limits of a lens are the size of the halation, the size of the CA, the size of the corner sharpness, etc and that when comparing cameras with lenses we have to compare within certain budgetary limitations, for example we can't fairly compare a $2,000-4,000 camera body with lenses that cost $10,000 each I find myself looking at sample footage of the A7III, the Z6, the GH5S, the S1, the S1H, the P6K, etc and just thinking "why would I be glad that I can see the lens problems in oversampled 4K when I could see less of them in straight 4K or even 1080p" and "if I was making a promotional film for this camera why the f*#k wouldn't you hire a nice cinema lens for a day?". The wedding video of the P6K was a tour-de-force of technology over common-sense - it was CA city, visible from the comfort of my chair and through the evisceration of YT compression - thank goodness we now have 6K RAW now - what a revolution! Don't get me wrong, I like 4K and I shoot 5K on my GH5, but the $2K I spent on it absolutely crushes the lenses that I can afford to put on it. I guess you can buy the super-fast lenses and then only shoot them at F5.6 to give yourself a fighting chance, but when I look at the S1H and think about how I could go from 5K to 6K, I just think about my $1000 Voigtlander 17.5mm f0.95 lens and think that wide open it's probably only 1080p at best (maybe not even that good) and that many other lenses are similar. Thank goodness we've got the technology now - all that extra memory card storage, editing SSD space, backup HDDs, CPU and GPU, it was totally worth it! Take the excellent Rokinon 50mm T1.5 lens for example. Here's a frame of it wide open, saved as a 4K 5MB PNG file vs a 1080p 700K Jpeg file, and there's barely any perceptible difference in resolution (there is a shift in colour though as photoshop seems to have changed the colours for some reason): Also, note the small amount of CA on the models right upper-shoulder where you can see some green fringing on the edge. Note that it's still visible on the 1080 version, and it's also still slightly visible on the 720p frame I didn't bother to upload. I did the same comparison on the spectacularly expensive Master Prime and there is a decent difference between 4K and 1080p with that lens, however there is still a minor amount of CA visible in the same location. This is a weakness on a $40K lens that would be visible on any budget 4K sensor, and as it is visible over a band 4 pixels wide on the 1080p downscale of that image, will also be visible on a 1080p camera too. I know I'm nit-picking, but so is anyone who is talking about the difference between 6K and 4K, and apparently these differences seem to matter enough to make people want to spend thousands of dollars on upgrading equipment. The more I think about this stuff, and the more that I do my own image quality tests with my own equipment the more I realise that I can't afford (and am not strong enough to even hand-hold!) any lens that is remotely in the same class of resolution as the camera I own. Or the camera that any of you guys likely own for that matter. Maybe we should be buying the best lenses we can afford and only buying enough camera to capture the image of those lenses, and not spending thousands more that will only do a better job of exploring the faults and limitations they have. Look at how bad even really expensive lenses really are: Am I missing some kind of really obvious lens-fault fetish that everyone has? Do people go weak at the knees because of CA? Can I just make my camera "cinematic" by applying halation and fringing in post?

That video seems like a good test. The guy in the video says that the FOV is equivalent to a spherical lens half the focal length, so I would imagine either the 40mm or 50mm would be quite practical. I think I agree - the 40mm had a really nice flare, with the 50mm looking a bit flatter. Of course, the exact angle of the torch and placement in the frame will probably have some impact there too though. Nice lenses though!

What kind of control will you have over shooting locations, and specifically, how far you can position the camera from the talent? If you've got flexibility then that's great, but if you're shooting things in limited space then you don't want a lens that's too tight as you won't be able to back the camera up enough to frame shots the way you want to. Just a practical consideration.

Good stuff! We film when the thing is really happening and we don't get a second chance, so practicing when it doesn't matter makes sense. I don't, but I do camera tests and experiments which is something. I should do more. I've been thinking about starting a side-project (explained in the "The D-Mount project" thread) and part of that is to learn and fine-tune (ha ha) my skills.

Video talking about the aesthetic, storytelling and emotional use of focal lengths... it starts slowly but gets to it and shows a lot of examples from the big Hollywood films that the cinematographer made.

Step 1: Someone with a 1080p BM camera (BMPCC / BMMCC / BMCC) and with a 4K or 6K BM camera (P4K / P6K) shoots something on both cameras, ideally making them as comparable as possible, and shares the footage from both. Step 2: Then people attempt to grade the 4K/6K footage to have the "magic" of the older cameras and shares the processed footage here. I'll be attempting it, but others would be welcome as well. Step 3: People review the processed footage and share impressions and opinions. The goal is to discover how to do it, or if we can't fully get there what might have helped. In a way we're trying to dissect the "magic" that the 1080p RAW BM cameras have.

I haven't managed to get any footage, but I'm still very interested to do this. I was hoping that my before/after in the $200 camera challenge might inspire people and show what is possible in post. Taking files with more resolution and emulating files with less resolution shouldn't be that hard, but I'm happy to be proven wrong!

So is the Voigt 17.5mm! Considering you own the Voigt, it might be useful to shoot a test scene at various apertures and then take the wide-open shots and try to add sharpening in post to match the shots from the sharper apertures. You might surprise yourself by how well you can match things, in which case it doesn't matter if they're a little soft. It would matter even less if you're shooting in the 5K mode, or delivering in 1080p.

Surely there is an OLPF filter with filter threads that you can mount to the front of your lenses and would do the same job? I'm not familiar with what filters are around, but I'd imagine this would solve your moire problem on your S1...

Just imagine the title of the thread said "2019" instead of 2018 and just re-read it. My advice - upgrade your skills with your existing camera. You get: an upgrade that is with you for life, not just for another year or two to feel good about yourself and like things are possible that maybe you didn't think were to shift your thinking that you can find solutions within yourself rather than just buying solutions to your problems I plan to celebrate all the new cameras by setting up a test shoot with my camera under the best conditions I possibly can, and then bringing the footage into Resolve and trying to match the skin tones from a high-end colourists showreel. This is partly to learn something about colour grading, partly to learn more about how to best use my existing camera, and partly to remind me that truly amazing footage can be created with equipment I already have and to not get drawn into the showreels of the new equipment. What would you like to learn?

Yes. I saw a vlogger include it in a vlog once when there was a meetup of vloggers and they got someone else doing the focus trick in the background, so they explained it. You put the camera in AF-S hold the camera up to your face, hold out your arm and flip your hand up (like you're indicating to stop a car) and do a single focus on the back of your hand. Then set the camera to MF and it will keep the focus you set from this procedure. The vloggers were all Sony people and they all laughed that they do this secretly to make sure they're kept in focus. Because they're Sony users and don't have flip screens they can't see what they're shooting, so basically put on a wide angle lens and point it at themselves and over time learn what the composition is like. They go MF because if you can't compose you don't know what you're pointing the camera at and you also don't know what's in focus and what isn't. Sony FTW!!

This is one thing I like about having a normal backpack that opens at the top - I can turn it around and wear it on my front and get into it without putting it down. Great for touristing (which is what I do typically) so you can change lenses while waiting in line or shuffling in a queue or whatever, and it also means it doesn't get put on the ground and get dirty, scratched, etc. Of course, if you had a set and weren't moving then that doesn't really apply and you'd want something you can lay down and access it on the long side rather than through one end.

I live in Australia and so am familiar with removing my laptop, but they don't get you to remove anything else from your bag. I've looked at the mess of cameras, iPad, batteries, chargers, and other devices and wondered how they can really interpret what it is, but they all seem to be happy with it. I once went through a TSA check in the US on a domestic flight with the detachable hand controller for an electric wheelchair (the chair itself was stowed) and it seems that wires and switches without a power supply causes some questions to be asked lol

Have you ever had to remove the camera pouch for inspection? The reason that I ask is that I think the only time that I ever had to (that I can remember) is on a domestic flight in India and security made me take everything out individually and wouldn't even let me keep them in the camera insert. So there were my lenses and camera bodies all rolling around crashing into each other in the trays as they started and stopped (and reversed) the x-ray conveyor belt. Then there's me standing at the other side trying to put everything back into its places and keep watch over everything while the 20 people behind me are standing around me snatching their stuff and basically trying to push everyone else out of their way. Luckily I was travelling with my wife because the security scanner was next to the line where the women queued to be searched, and the men had to be searched in a line about 6 queues up, so you basically had to just abandon your bag. There was no talking to security either - I've seen more polite crowd control techniques from farmers loading livestock into trucks! That was an experience I'll not quickly forget!

When I was buying my GH5 I was evaluating options and word was that Olympus had slightly better IBIS than Panasonic. Not sure what model that was, but they're not to be sneezed at.

I use a camping brand daypack style bag for air travel carry-on and a camera luggage insert like this: That bag also carries my laptop, one of my hard drives (one carry-on and one checked as backups), headphones, and all the other travel bits and pieces too, so is only for travel legs. Then when I get to my destination I have a separate lightweight backpack (one of those corporate fitness promotional bags - yes I weighed every bag I owned) and just transfer the camera insert into that bag for day trips, leaving laptop and everything else in the hotel safe. I also bought a vest like this for the huge pocket in case I need to shed weight at the airport: Then again, I shoot mirrorless with smaller lenses, and I'm not a pro photographer so take that into account too! Isn't there a point where you get a hard-case like a Pelican for your carry-on because you're carrying that much gear?

Yes. Also, if you're worried about it, just take your 70-200 2.8 out of your bag and carry it separately so that even if someone asks to weight it then it'll be a lot lighter than normal. I find it a strange situation that they can weigh your bag, but can't weigh you. I have had extra luggage weight anxiety and I purchased a sleeveless vest with a huge pocket in the front in case I wanted to reduce carry-on weight, and it has a nice hood too so can act like a scarf or hood if I was cold or wanted to sleep on the plane. My carry-on is actually underweight normally, but it's nice to know that if I have problems I can take my bags away to "re-pack" and basically just pocket heavy things then get through check-in and unload my pockets again.

Yes, an eND like the FS5.. A GH5S with IBIS and eND would be pretty nice, but I don't think that's enough to keep it at the same level as the GH5 has proven to be. Dual ISO would be pretty sweet though! Just buy second-hand?

So, in-line with whats winning right now, how about a challenge where we: play for fun and glory can only spend $50 for a camera body can only use the Helios 58mm F2 Russian lens (but speed boosters are allowed) there would be a general theme equipment is secret until the judging is over the schedule would be: a time period where people can order their equipment and have it shipped then we announce the theme and everyone has something like a week or two to make their film then judging like last time then we reveal equipment and shooting tips etc. I'm up for that

If DR15 could do it then DR16 should be able to. Hopefully someone on the BMD forums will help

Are you racing for a deadline? I'm wondering if it's a CPU bottleneck where two cores are being used at maximum and the others aren't being used much at all, but who knows and that doesn't really help you. If you're racing for a deadline then I'd say bite the bullet and render Optimised Media for the Multicam clips you need and get it done, then troubleshoot later. It's very strange why this would be happening though, v16 is fully released software so shouldn't be worse than the previous version.