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Absolutely. I've bought fast lenses for my GH5 to improve it's low-light just as much as for shallower DOF, but there's limits to the practicality of shallow DOF. I'm attracted to adapting FF or MF lenses because I can get a brighter image for the same DOF, which would make focussing easier for the same levels of noise.

LOL, yeah, we might get regular great announcements for some time.. In a world where technology depreciates quickly and there is always a chance that next month will be replaced you have to just make a decision with what is around and when you need it just buy the current best contender. So buy when you need to, but if you don't, then wait. If you buy a tool that does the job then a better one won't make yours worse, after all.

Absolutely. I think it also depends on style and taste. Some people are more sensitive to some aspects rather than others, so two people of equal "pickiness" might also have different preferences too.

Just for reference, there's a little symbol in the top right of each post (two lines and three dots) that is a link to that specific post

One shot no edit... one shot no edit!! Do it! Do it!

Pros who run recording studios experiment heavily with microphone placement in relation to the person's mouth and the sweet spot is normally to one side and with some vertical adjustment too, definitely not on-axis! They say that the different elements of the persons voice are projected differently and so by moving the mic around your finding the optimum blend of enhancing the pleasant tones and minimising the others. They say that it makes so much difference that if you don't do it then there's no point being picky about microphone choice either. And if you have the mic off-axis then you may not need a pop filter. I recorded the VO for my 3-hour short film challenge with the iPhone headset and no filter and it was fine. Also, the closer you get to the persons mouth the less the room ambience will be audible because you're lowering the gain to compensate.

This joins the rifle grip as a good way to excite the local security contingent wherever you go..

I think this conversation should be had when looking at the exported finished film. Depending on what the delivery mechanism is the differences between uncompressed raw and braw are likely to be completely obliterated unless there is a heavy grade or a very high quality master file.

Apple are either absolutely cutting edge or are late adopters. They go very early with the tech they want to push their user experience into (removing ports for example) but for the rest they let android market test other features and if they work in the market then they catch up (third party keyboards). I'm more surprised they ever had 10-bit video rather than them not having it now.

4K 56Mbps isn't promising unfortunately, even if the sensor and lens are much improved from other models

I think there are a few ways to tackle this challenge: A bit of planning, a bit of shooting, a bit of editing, a bit of grading (probably popular) A bit of planning, a bit of shooting, a bit of editing, shoot in standard profile and no grading Very little planning, a lot of fast shooting, a lot of editing Lots of planning, much less shooting, much less editing Huge amounts of planning, one shot, no edit I'm kind of waiting for someone to do the last one.... I did say planning can be done ahead of time, and there's no limit to cast/crew so you could make one of those one-shot pieces nicely for this. That's the one where the BTS would be really great to see

The GH5 is a proven workhorse. I'm not sure about the XT3 but knowing Fuji it's likely it's also a well-built product like that.

In a way yes. Although there's a great phrase that keeps coming to mind "as much as the market can bear". I know when I've come upon yet another example when Apple or Microsoft or someone else deliberately do something in their interests and against mine sometimes it really gets me agitated and I contemplate switching to a different brand, and the question really is "how much of this sh*t can I bear before I'll be motivated enough to switch companies". Normally the thought that follows is that it's so much work and so I'll stick with them, and then the next thought is that they are absolute geniuses at knowing just how much we will bear. There's an entire type of product strategy where you develop a product that does 17 new things and you work out what the minimum number of new features would get people to upgrade, and then you cripple all the other features you could have given the customer and sell that. Same next year. You can get half-a-dozen models out of the same hardware just by trickling out the improvements, and sell up to 6 times the number of cameras that you would have sold if you just released the features all at once.

I wouldn't apologise.. more info is sometimes useful, and in a world dominated by people that can't even be bothered to include all the letters in each word, someone that speaks in sequences of sentences should be applauded rather than criticised. If it's too long for anyone, they don't have to read it

Looks like a spam bot, except that it has nothing to say... it is funny though. I'm hanging around in here waiting for random memes to begin!

Listening to customer feedback and giving people what they want is a very promising product strategy! Awesome

Everyone knows it takes less time editing to make a longer film.. same in writing

Now is the time to buy and adapt Medium Format lenses...

I've been doing lots of research into this recently and I concluded that there is no 'best' set, they all have a certain aesthetic and it depends on what you shoot and what you value. There are modern lenses which are sharp with lots of contrast and micro-contrast, then there are vintage lenses which can have any combination of less resolution, less contrast, or less micro-contrast depending on the glass and coatings used. Some links to some of the popular sets: Russian lenses: http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?152436-Russian-Soviet-USSR-Lens-Survival-Guide Be aware that Russian lenses aren't one company - they were several companies all competing for market share behind the iron curtain. Contax Zeiss: http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?92044-Contax-Zeiss-Survival-Guide Minolta Rokkor: http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?92246-Minolta-Rokkor-Survival-Guide Medium format and others (future proof your tiny FF sensor!): http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?139153-Mamiya-Medium-Format-Lens-Survival-Guide http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?160886-Lomo-70mm-format-lenses-other-65mm-70mm-format-lenses Canon FD lenses have a great reputation. As do the Rokinon/Samyang, although I'm not sure on budget for those. Google can probably supply you with more examples. Remember that photography is littered with excellent glass that doesn't have enough acronyms after its name to still be fully in demand, but are optically excellent, and fully manual, which is actually better for us instead of worse! Depending on what you're after, great lenses can still be had for under $10 on ebay if you're willing to wait a bit for the extreme bargains to surface, some lenses were just so popular that even though they're excellent there just isn't enough demand for manual lenses to rally push the price up. I got a great 135 / 3.5 FF in fully working condition for USD$3.50 plus shipping just because there are a zillion 135mm lenses and the optical formula was simple so they're basically all great.

Also, if you just spent hundreds of dollars on a SB then adding a dumb adapter to the front of that instead of spending hundreds more on a second SB is relatively attractive!

Buy a camera that is "good enough" and learn to colour grade. Seriously. I used to be like you, but then I worked out what I wanted in an image and bought the right camera and lenses, and now when I hear that there's a new 12K RAW 16-bit pocket camera with built-in gimbal and AI drone I don't even care. It happens that the camera I bought was a GH5, but if you have different needs then it will be a different camera. The other part is learning to colour grade. I was "done" with other cameras when I pulled the GH5 files into Resolve and it looked and felt like when the pros grade cinema camera footage - they pull in a shot and it looks flat because it's log, and then they push and pull it around almost mercilessly and it just does it and looks great, and the GH5 files did that too. With all my previous cameras the file was fragile and would break given half a chance. I'm not getting spectacular images out of the GH5 yet, but that's because I just need to learn to grade better. I know the GH5 is great and it's about my ability to grade, not its limitations. Specifically I think that's because it's 10-bit and the colour science doesn't have problems, so I know I can work with it. Your results and preferences might be different, but when you're wishing you had something else it's because you're not happy with what you have. There are always better cameras and we all wish we had an Alexa but many of us are satisfied even if the Alexa has a better image.

I don't really know that much about zcam or cinemartin, and I've only watched a few reviews of kinefinity products, and the digital bolex people aren't in it anymore, so I'm hardly an expert, but they all seemed to be in the "RED used to be the plucky up-start taking it to the cinema establishment, but now they are the establishment and cost both arms and both legs, so here's the people that are doing that job now....." camp. Maybe they were only taking up a piece of the pie from people that weren't actually in the market for a modular cinema camera (like me), but they were on the radar as one of the companies in that segment.

You don't say...

Very interesting. They've delivered cameras before, and upsampling 6K to 8K will be similar to upsampling 3.2K to 4K which has proven to be successful for other manufacturers in the past. With the recent fall of Cinemartin, there is more pie for people like Zcam.

We're about due for the GH6....