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In my recent deliberations / fantasies / hallucinations, I've been contemplating my recent realisations, which include: I don't need or want super shallow DoF (beyond F4-5.6 FF) I want quick AF-S but don't care about AF-C I want maximum flexibility, and to include tighter FOVs, which means a zoom I want the lens to be as small as possible In this mindset, I discovered two interesting lenses. The first is the Panasonic 14-140mm F3.5-5.6 zoom. Obviously it's a 10X zoom lens, but it's a similar size as the 14-42 kit lens and the 12-35/2.8 lens! It's also faster than the kit lens! The second interesting thing I realised about the variable speed zoom lenses is that while they're not fixed aperture, they come pretty close to being fixed DoF. I worked out the distance to get mid-shot (waist-up) and close-up (shoulders-up) shots for each focal length, then calculated the DoF at each distance. We know that DoF gets shallower with longer focal lengths, but the variable zooms get slower with those longer focal lengths, and it turns out that these mostly cancel each other out. The 10X zoom lens only varies from 2.9-3.4m over the entire range. (For the imperial myopicists, a meter is roughly a yard...) On top of that, the 14-140mm lens also has pretty desirable DoFs.. If I am taking a mid-shot then, for my work at least, it's an environmental portrait and so I'd want to include a bit of the environment in it, but getting a bit of defocus is also desirable if there is some actual depth in the scene. 3m seems about right, as getting too much shallower than that will start to make it look like the person is in front of a green-screen. If I am taking a close-up then it's probably a shot that is either in isolation of the environment, or the environment isn't required if edited between two other wider shots with deeper DoFs. The other little rabbit hole I went down was looking at the FX3 / FX30 bodies and realising how small they were. Of course, then comes the question of lenses, and then I found this little beauty - the FE 28-60mm F4-5.6... it's tiny! That is the GX85 with 14-42/3.5-5.6 lens, the FX3 with 28-60/4-5.6 and the GH5 with 12-35/2.8. If I went full-frame I think I would look at the whole system and the size of the various lenses and that would be a huge determining factor. Also, because I am not pretending to be Zack Snyder, I'd much prefer to have a modest aperture lens and combine it with a camera with spectacular low-light. Unfortunately, my investigations showed that the L-mount system doesn't really have any compact zoom lenses at all.. That's the FP with 14-28, 16-35, and 20-60, but none of them have OIS. Combine that with the FP lacking IBIS, and you've got no stabilisation at all. If you add the S5 and S5iiX to get some IBIS, here's the lineup: Of course, the elephant in the room is that the other options are smaller, better, or both.. the GX85 has a 10x zoom range and dual IS and is smaller, the FX3 has dual IS and is smaller again, the GH5 isn't smaller but has dual IS, and the S5 combos are the largest and only have IBIS. Of course, if you take the Sony 28-60mm lens out of the picture, then the Sony system also reverts to tiny-body-huge-lens-syndrome too, but it's a serious advantage for the Sony. Of course, if you compare the GX85 vs FX3 for walk-around setup, 10X zoom, and wildlife/sports setups, then the situation is clear: If I was to go full-frame, it could only be Sony at the moment due to lens choices, and only because the FX3 has IBIS and they have that little 28-60mm zoom.

How do you know... you could have literally dozens of them on you right now without knowing!

You can see the lens in this shot.

Just found this... read the caption under the picture - one of those little things is a camera - imagine the circuitry inside it! https://spectrum.ieee.org/tiny-robot

My impression is that it's really about the right part for the job. Physically smaller resistors are easier to fit into smaller circuit boards and around small chips with lots of pins, etc, but also have lower power handling, so it really depends on the application. I think over time most electronic devices have a relatively constant number of parts. As time goes on and we want more features and higher performance you'd want to add more chips, but as we gradually work out common combinations of functions we create chips that combine many functions into one. For example, back when CD players were the thing, there would be a chip that read the signal off the disc, a DAC chip that converted it into analog signal, and then an amplifier that drove the CD player outputs which go to the preamp or amplifier. Later on they made digital processing chips that sat in-between the signal chip and the DAC. Later on they made chips that did all 4 of those functions. So regardless of the thing you want, there's likely to be a number of chips that you need to have, you'll need to make them work together physically and digitally (with the right configurations etc) and you'll need a controller chip to enable the user to instruct the chips what to do (change modes, change settings, record, stop, playback, etc).

Action camera with handle? They have audio inputs and are wider than 28mm. If the problem with the smartphone was fragility, put it in a protective case.... or maybe even mount it in something that gives it a handle and mounting points? It'd still be smaller than a mirrorless but has audio inputs. You could literally just use it as a camera and not even put a SIM in it.

The tips for networking I've learned for networking in the corporate world (which is likely to be broadly similar) are: Be brief - people like it when you respect their time Say something in the message that is unique to them - this shows them you haven't copy/pasted to a million people Tell them why they might contact you Tell them how to contact you Tell them how to check out your previous work A message as simple as "Hi - I loved your work on project X, I do sound on similar projects. I'd love to work with you - if you have something coming up get in touch! <link to bio>". What I learned about networking: People hire people they get along with, skills are necessary but are a secondary consideration When meeting people, establish rapport with the other person first, ask questions about their own work and projects, don't talk about yourself or pitch unless they ask If you can solve a problem for them or give them advice (that is welcome!) then you'll stand out and be seen as useful If they ask about your work, don't embellish or diminish it - successful people can often tell when people are bending the truth (even on gut-feel) and its an instant fail Focus on understanding their situation and challenges and try to help You probably know much of this, but in case you didn't, and also for the lurkers, thought I'd elaborate.

Electronics are so complicated now that it's almost impossible to build your own stuff without having thousands, or tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment. My dad loves electronics and messes around with Raspberry Pi computers to make automated things (like a greenhouse where there is a fan and motorised window which he can control to keep a desired temperature range etc). He had sometimes had issues building the little temperature probes, which are little chips that you mount on little circuit boards. He printed out the circuit board pattern and etched the circuit boards himself, but when it came time to solder on all the components around it, he found that the surface mount resistors he'd ordered were too small for him to see! Not too small to pick up and work with (which they were) - they were literally too small to see on the piece of plain white copy paper he'd put them on. To give you an idea, they would easily fit into the grooves on your fingers that make your fingerprints! He had to order a new batch and hope that they were bigger (they were) but still very very difficult to solder by hand. You could just say "use human sized components then" and that works sometimes, but with digital communications lines between chips, the length of the trace between the two chips matters, because depending on the physical length of the trace they work like echo-chambers with the digital signal bouncing back and forth, and also as antennas both broadcasting the digital signal to the surrounding areas and also receiving other digital signals from surrounding areas, so even just by putting two chips the wrong distance apart they can fail to talk to each other. I wish it was easy, but it's really not. Plus, then you have to program everything. Have you seen the code for Magic Lantern? They're only modifying the firmware that Canon has written, you'd be writing it from scratch!

People seem to be obsessed with nit-picking the colour science of cameras, but indicate they don't colour grade for one reason or another. To me, even a few simple adjustments can improve the image so much more than the differences in colour science between manufacturers. In fact, the image out of camera is like a plain sponge cake straight out of the oven - it's nice and the quality matters but it's far from the final result. Colour grading is also talked about as being super complicated, and it can be, but it doesn't have to be. Simple grades can still be really powerful. Here are some examples from online, to show how much of a nice image is camera colour science and how much is colour grading. ARRI LOG: With ARRIs LUT: Grade: The above grade was done using only white balance, the lift / gamma / gain controls, a vignette, log wheels, in that order. To look at skin tones, the holy grail of camera colour science - here's a before and after.... before: Then on top of the previous look, here's additional treatments to give it more of a film look. These additional adjustments were: Gain (to lower exposure), white balance, saturation (lowered), darken shadows, in that order. Which was inspired by this frame from Sicario: Here's the video showing the whole grade: https://youtu.be/8GkcqEA72QM Next example - SOOC: with 709 conversion: Grade: Video link: https://youtu.be/fRDjEB6ryyQ Next one - with 709 conversion: Grade: Video: https://youtu.be/OmBBYHMi_ek Next one - SOOC: With 709 conversion: Grade: Video: https://youtu.be/UNW_8jcGJqw There are literally more examples online to count, but I just focused on the more neutral looking colour grades, as the people doing dirty film grades probably don't care about skin tone minutia when they're going to pummel the image with Dehancer etc. So, what's the TLDR? Even half-a-dozen simple steps applied in addition to the manufacturers LUT can make a huge difference It's about making small changes to make the image look slightly nicer, and they add up The reason that fancy cameras look incredible is because the colourist takes the great work done on set and expands on it How do I get started? Look at the image and work out what tool might improve it (if you have no idea, just try the basic ones) Wiggle whatever tool back and forth, deliberately going too far one way and too far the other way, then find the best spot Compare the adjustment you just make to see if it makes the image better or worse, if it's better then keep it, otherwise undo (sometimes a really good adjustment will look completely natural and the 'before' will look like something is being applied to the image and is damaging it) Go to 1. Repeat until you can't find anything that makes the image look better. If you're using another image to inspire your look, then for step 1, just look at both images and work out what looks different about yours, and try and fix it. Is it brighter? Darker? More contrasty? A different colour? More or less saturated? Adding a vignette to lighten your subject or darken the other areas of the frame is a good trick. Looking to find anything in the frame that's distracting and de-emphasising it is really useful too - even just lowering the brightness or saturation can really stop it from fighting for attention. Even by the time you've adjusted these basic tools, you'll be well ahead.

Smartphones tend to have a mic input, sometimes through an adapter, and the odd one has a larger sensor than normal. If you're ok with older small-sensor cameras then maybe a newer smartphone with larger-than-average sensor might be good enough?

That video has flicked a switch in my head. I have now gone from asking "what can I shoot with my phone?" to "is there any reason to not buy this and shoot everything with it?" and "why do I need a separate camera at all?". I genuinely think that none of my cameras can better those results - not the GH5 or even BMPCC / BMMCC. I'm not even sure if cameras like the S5iiX would do much better.

Yeah, that's the best result yet.. it's genuinely incredible!

Controlled and properly shot/graded side-by-side Alexa 35 vs iPhone comparison.. It looks great but (spoiler alert!!) it's not as good as the $110K camera package, especially when pointing into the sun..

Looks like the project is progressing... we've talked about it a few times before: https://www.eoshd.com/comments/topic/44730-raspberry-pi-releases-an-interchangeable-lens-camera-module/#comment-354482 https://www.eoshd.com/comments/topic/61100-cinepi-2k-open-source-camera/#comment-471981 https://www.eoshd.com/comments/topic/73291-new-camera-with-global-shutter-for-rasberry-pi/#comment-563710 I don't recall the images being that interesting, but the 3D printed chassis reminds me of this thing, based on a deconstructed EOS M with Magic Lantern:

LOL about leeks.. I'd just go for potato and leek soup, which is quite lovely actually 🙂 In all seriousness, I think the biggest factor in any piece of equipment is how it makes you feel, because if you're feeling good then you'll make better compositions, people will react to you differently and you'll have an easier time and the people in the images will be happier and more at ease, etc. I get a good feeling when shooting with the GH5, knowing how nice the files are in post, and also with the GX85 because I like how it is to shoot with in terms of the size and form-factor. If you feel like you're fighting with the camera all the time, it won't matter what the colour science is like, the shooting and content will suffer more than the image can make up for.

What setup did you get for personal shooting? and what split on stills/video will it be?

Just upscale it - people can't see the difference anyway!

I find that there is deceptively little screen time from the BM cameras that is not either mounted to something (tripod, shoulder-rig, gimbal, etc) or slow-motion footage. The hand-held normal-speed footage I do see always feels drunk/drugged to the extent that I wouldn't use it in my work, and it's borderline in the work I see it in - you can feel that they cut away quickly from those shots in the edit, there is no lingering. Even the slow-motion shots are sometimes strained. Personally, I find the overtones of vertigo that this movement adds to the edits to easily overpower the wonderful image these cameras have. As such, I view the non-paid works of Florian and Matteo as mostly artistic camera tests. Matteo posts paid work on his channel, normally ads for wineries, and these are much more professional, and feature very little off-putting un-stabilised footage. All this, despite using stabilised lenses and these things weighing a significant amount even without a "proper" rig. I have no idea why this is the case, the Komodo material I have seen didn't strike me like this, although maybe I haven't watched enough of that to notice.

I suspect that basically everyone can do significantly better than that colour grade if they follow a couple of simple suggestions when they're colour grading. The first is to find a reference image, or set of images, that they like, and to refer to them throughout the colour grading process. It's easy to adapt to what you're seeing and to make tiny little changes until you've gone far astray. The second is to apply small changes that each make the image a small amount better. Obviously you will need to convert LOG footage to 709 and that step will be a big improvement, but apart from that just make small improvements. When you make each change, you should be able to compare the before/after of that change and each one should make the image better. If you applied the above and just played with each control, even not knowing what they did, you'd find the occasional one here and there that made the image nicer in your eyes, and by keeping each one that is an improvement you'd gradually be making the image nicer, and I genuinely think you'd do far better than that grade.

My main changes came from my two last big trips, which were Melbourne and Korea. Partly these changes came from shooting, partly from reviewing the footage, and partly from thinking about it since. I realised my iPhone 12 Mini shoots 10-bit HDR footage internally, and the colour science is quite benign / neutral Ironically, I did a test to rule out the iPhone as a real camera, but ended up proving the opposite! I preferred the shooting experience with the GX85 over the GH5 This is just purely down to the size and form-factor of the camera. Not only is it easier to carry and therefore faster to shoot with because it's close-to-hand, but less people look at you while shooting, the kids were less intimidated by it when shooting them, and it was a generally nicer experience. I preferred the speed of AF vs manual focus lenses The AF-S on MFT cameras is practically instant and very reliable. I don't need continuous AF as I tend to compose-focus-shoot-stop then repeat when I shoot a new composition. I realised that a zoom lens would get me a wider range of shots I am used to working a scene pretty heavily, seeing shots at various focal lengths, and also anticipating compositions and moving around to try and make them work (e.g. can I get a shot showing the view in the background, the church in the foreground, and framed by this flowering plant?). Having a zoom means just quickly grabbing all the shots I can see. I realised I don't need a fast lens This was an interesting one. I shot a lot with the 14mm F2.5 and it was borderline too shallow DoF wide open, because what I want is a bit of background separation, but not so thin a DoF that I get focusing issues, especially during the shot when the subject is moving around and the subject distance changes a bit. I realised that variable aperture zoom lenses (the cheap ones!) are surprisingly constant DoF lenses I just realised this today. For example, let's imagine I have the 14-42mm kit lens and I'm taking a mid-shot of a person. If I'm taking this mid on 14mm then I'd be 1.9m away, the lens would be at F3.5, and the DoF would be 2.9m. If I take the same composition at 42mm then I'd be 6m away, the lens would be at F5.6 and the DoF would be 3.6m - very similar! This is actually what I want creatively - a mid shot is an environmental portrait so having a DoF of 3-4m will include what's around them but give a bit of defocus outside that range. For the same lens, if I shoot a close-up, the DoFs range from 0.6m/24" to 0.8m/31" which is appropriate as a close-up is more about the person in isolation so a bit more separation is a nice thing to have. I realised that my 12-35mm F2.8 lens on the GX85/GH5 has adequate low-light capability as a walk-around lens This gives me enough low-light performance as a walk-around lens, and if I need better low-light then I will most likely have enough time to pull out a faster prime. My 7.5/2, 17.5/0.95, and 50/1.2 are small and light enough to take if I know I'll be going somewhere with serious low-light. For example, zoos at night, less-lit places at night like the beach, lookouts at night, etc. I've also learned a TON about colour grading and how to get the most from what I have, with the most important thing being that one critical difference between over-sharpened digital, high quality digital, and film is how it renders the contrast on fine detail, and conveniently, a simple blur will fix sharpening and give digital the same rendering characteristics as film LOL. The name of the game is getting the images you want with the least work, so no criticism from me on how we all get there. I also decided when I started this that I'd do things the hard way and therefore learn the most, rather than just buy my way to good colour (which is realistically just buying a Canon or recent Sony camera and Dehancer/Filmconvert). I fear I may have over-emphasised the potential complexity of Resolve and colour grading, without putting adequate emphasis on the fact that the most mileage comes from the basics, and it's a game of diminishing returns that kicks in pretty quickly. I've contemplated starting a thread showing what benefits can be had from only using very simple tools. Not sure if that would be worthwhile.

Physically... the 200Mbps is just about right for bitrates 🙂

I agree - the colour grading looks to be with one of the film emulation suites, and is very very heavy handed. However, I think that this video shows a number of things... The shots included a wide range of difficult situations and held up. There were high-DR scenes, including the sun. There were low-light scenes, including a fire which wasn't clipped to hell. There was slow-motion, etc. None of it looked like there were any issues at all - sure it wasn't an Alexa 65 amount of DR but the images didn't really suffer either. The footage didn't break-up under an extreme grade. This is quite an accomplishment and anyone who knows what it's like to grade images from very small sensor size cameras know that when you push the image, especially to include huge amounts of saturation like this one has, the image very quickly shows its digital thin-ness and brittleness, but this didn't not happen. There were lots of skin tones pushed severely and no-one looked pallid-yellow or lobster-red. It's very difficult to push that amount of saturation without lips becoming glowing-red or there being yellowish areas (or both), and then when you try and compress the hues by pushing both sides towards the middle hues, it's hard to keep the right colour contrast - so many tools make people look like their whole face is covered in foundation by making the whole face the same hue. This is a real-world test by a real-world person. In the same way that the SlashCam test is valuable because it has been shot competently and hasn't been messed with in post, this is a valuable test because the person who made it obviously isn't a professional cinematographer or colourist, it wasn't shot in controlled conditions with pristine lighting catering to the exact weaknesses of the sensor and including models who had perfect skin even before they spent an hour in make-up. Any camera can look glorious if you do that. This sort of test indicates what anyone who gets the phone, waves it around, then colour grades it with Dehancer/FilmConvert/Filmbox/etc can expect to get. It's not a beautiful film, but it's a useful test of the camera.

But not it's size!!

Not unless you're shooting long record times and we all know what that means..... booooooooooring films!!

I've seen quite a few videos from the BMCC6K now, and they all seem to shoot and edit in 3:2, which I find quite strange.... CAN doesn't mean SHOULD! This one is an 8K YT upload: