kye

I'm also often impressed when I see something shot on film, but in addition to that, I'm often impressed by something that I think is shot on film, but when I look it up I see it was shot on something like an F35, which shot 1080p and was introduced in 2008. Often the things I see from pre-Alexa digital cameras are on TV shows, where they wouldn't have had the budget for a colourist to dedicate themselves to optimising every shot, so a lot of the look must have been from the camera. Also, and to partly counter what @BTM_Pix said about it being a team effort, sometimes the shot that is more impressive will be an external shot in full sun, which is something that most of us are much closer than 499 people away from being able to re-create. This is why I've turned my attention to colour grading - the camera companies are no longer trying to create the kind of images we're actually chasing. So it's either shoot on film or you're on your own.

I have seen various snippets over the years of influencers talking about the craft and lots of them have a far more developed sense of things than you'd imagine. Not all of them of course, but definitely a lot of them. One of the things they're often very aware of is the aesthetic of various types of production. In todays terms, things shot on a phone have a certain look that tends to be viewed as more authentic and less produced. If you're making content that plays better if your viewers think that things are unplanned and 'real' then this aesthetic would help that, and if you want to appear as a professional authoritative source then maybe some nice lighting and shallower DOF would suit better. As a few examples, Gerald Undone seems more like an authority figure with a nice studio setup rather than shooting on a phone while unboxing things on his floor, Chefs that want to be taken seriously have professional looking kitchens and have nice lighting and cameras, but not everyone wants to look professional. A bit of searching revealed this channel - a kids show that looks like it's shot on a smartphone. https://www.youtube.com/@KidsDianaShow/about BUT, the channel has 112M subs and 93 BILLION views! I have no idea if they do paid content but the YT ad revenue alone would probably buy them an Alexa. I suspect part of their allure is that the content sort-of looks like it was made by the kids themselves. Maybe it is, and maybe there's an entire production team, but the aesthetic is deliberate. Cinematographers choose lenses deliberately because they're professionals, you'd be crazy if you thought that professional YouTubers weren't aware of the difference between filming on a smartphone vs a cinema camera 🙂

If they overheat then they're not for influencers... The best way to shorten your record times is to: Develop script & storyboard Shoot in controlled situations Create the excitement deliberately Most influencers, except the serious ones that have mature and controlled processes, just setup crazy situations and then see what happens, recording the whole time, then edit it down. If it overheats, it'll be yet another floater in the camera specs pool, along with cameras without wide angle lenses, selfie screens, external audio inputs, etc etc.

Actually, I thought this forum was mostly focused on 8K RAW with global shutter... I always seem to be the minority opinion when discussing what cinema actually looks like, what is practical in the real world, that spending $5K on a camera and 5 minutes slapping on a LUT isn't the best approach to getting good colour, that the content of the video matters more than the DR, that editing is more important than colour subsampling, etc etc

Even watching a movie trailer on YT, then watching "cinematic" videos on YT will show, very clearly, that despite the movie trailers being right there, just a few clicks away, most online film-makers are in a parallel universe. I understand that not everyone wants "cinematic" results, and that's fine, but it's just incredible that those who do are so far from the mark and it's so obvious. Maybe we're in a post-truth moving image design world?? 😂😂😂

49 people?? That's WAY more than the Barkely Marathons... only 17 people have finished that since 1989 😉 (For anyone not familiar, the Barkely Marathons is essentially what a cross country race would be in hell, and was specifically designed so that high-achievers would be able to experience failure.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barkley_Marathons) Seriously though, the two races couldn't be more different, how fun. I've never needed to do crazy things to find the limits of myself as a human being - just watching anything shot on film and then trying to colour grading your home video footage to match will show you your limits in about an hour!

Production process: Shot on Panavision Cameras and anamorphic lenses Using Kodak and Fuji negative films and Kodak projection film No digital intermediary - editing was done on the negative The image quality that blew you away was the state of the art in colour science in 1989. Here we are in 2023, 34 years later and we have 8K RAW but it still doesn't look even remotely like that. It's a pity everyone wanted more pixels instead of better pixels.

Well, if that's what you want to do then don't let me stop you, but social media is bad for your health in many ways and something like this might be one of them!! It also reminds me of the doco The Barkely Marathons which used to be on Netflix but doesn't seem to be available any more - if you haven't seen it I highly recommend it 🙂 This one is on YT and is also a pretty good watch, although I think the other one was a better edit (and definitely a better colour grade!):

How to say you're in the US without saying you're in the US! My experience travelling elsewhere is that people stop and look at you, but not to pose...

In a moment of temporary insanity I read the first few pages of that thread and the previous camera one, and was left with impression that BM have a bit of a problem. The people in the thread seem to want a new BM camera to be: FF sensor modular / "box" design with Pro features UMP sensor (or similar performance) replacement for BMMCC Micro Cinema Camera bright tilting/flipping touchscreen replacement for P4K The way I read those incompatible requests is that, according to the customers, BM have four "holes" in their lineup: professional modular camera, likely FF, with SDI / timecode / etc, flagship modular camera, likely S35/FF, to compliment P6K update for P4K for entry-level users replacement for BMMCC I'd even suggest a fifth hole in their line-up, which is an update to the OG BMPCC, which would have the look of the old sensors, but with 2.5K, better battery / sound, brighter tilt screen, and dual-ISO. Of course, the market for that last one would be too small 🙂

and your NLE will be so fast that the editing experience will be fantastic!

Everyone knows that long takes are boring......

Yeah, it's the first example I've seen that's ready for genuine pro work right now.

Sure! But for a weekly upload schedule you might need to branch out somewhat 🙂

These folks are using generative fill to create matt environments for videos... Interesting stuff.

I'm also interested in shiny things, but less-so now, and to a certain extent I'm protected from getting better equipment simply due to how important size is in how/where I shoot. It's also worth acknowledging that there are lots of reasons that buying new stuff might provide a benefit... improved end results is one that we're all familiar with, but also things like ease-of-use / quality-of-life, sentimental / emotional attachments, status, learning and discover, novelty, and other factors are in the mix too, and will be worth something to each of us, even though we may differ significantly about how much each of these is worth. Of course, when someone is spending thousands of dollars on a new system for the sake of getting nicer colour science rather than learning to colour grade beyond just using LUTs, then that's not the best use of resources!

Simple - people would rather pay for better-looking videos than put in the work to develop their skills.

While we're on the subject of innovation in camera design and vlogging in particular.... The new DJI Action 3 looks pretty innovative, and despite being an "Action" camera is better for vlogging than most vlog cameras: For vlogging, it has: a very wide lens (they claim it's equivalent to a 11.24mm lens on FF!!!) square sensor that can record horizontally, vertically, or the whole sensor and let you stabilise/crop in post crazy-good stabilisation, including things like horizon lock GoPro-sized charging case with pop-up selfie screen that doubles as a remote monitor magnetic / sticky attachments and lots of mounting options H264 @ 80Mbps up to 2.7K Is tiny and weighs practically nothing: camera is 35.5g / 1.25oz and action camera case thingy is 96g / 3.4oz Crucially, it no longer has restricted recording times - previous models had restricted recording times that were progressively shorter when you applied heavier stabilisation (I think it was a thermal limit). Product Showcase / AD: Footage comparison to Go 2 and GoPro 11:

Ideas for your new channel: "Ask the beard" a channel with you reacting to videos and viewer questions from a NZ perspective "Hold my beard" a channel where you do challenges and review the many extreme sports in NZ "For the beard" a channel focusing on progressive fashion culminating in launching beard-care products for both men and women The possibilities are endless, just like the talent available!

What is the rest of your image pipeline? If you're uploading to virtually any streaming service then their compression will do you a huge favour by removing almost all the noise in the image. I did a test of creating a video with increasing levels of noise and then uploaded it to YT, and was absolutely stunned at the amount of noise I had to have on the timeline before any noise was visible in the output at all.

This is the exact reason they made the GH5S. It was a non-IBIS companion to the GH5, designed to be used on gimbals and other mounts.

Sounds like you've got lots of options on the table, but I'd just caution you against getting wrapped up in specs and forgetting that durability and reliability are your primary concerns, as you're operating in harsh conditions for long periods and are a long way from support if something breaks. I don't know how this translates into the various models being discussed, but I'd imagine it would point towards the professional-bodied cameras like the FS and FX lines. Not only will they be built with the right build quality and cooling and temp and humidity and dust ratings, but having more durable hardware with things like integrated XLR connectors and such will also make the camera more robust. Having cheap, light, small cameras with great image quality is great for careful consumers like me, but that's definitely not what you want in the jungle.

This is quite a good outcome. In Parts Unknown with Anthony Bourdain they filmed a lot in slow-motion and used it in the edit as both real-time as well as slowed-down (conformed) which would require audio in 120p if doing in-camera audio. I suspect it's quite useful if you're making stylised documentary / verite style content.

That makes sense. It is worth noting that this has a limitation that clips can only be in one group. So if you want to use groups to manage camera grades between cameras, or to manage different grades between scenes, then you can do that, but you can't do both because a clip can only be in one group at once. So if you have two cameras and an emotional arc then this won't work. I think this is why BM added the Shared Node and Adjustment Layer functionality - it adds more flexibility. I have a sneaking suspicion that BM might be playing a bit of ecosystem protectionism here as well. Most people round-tripping to Resolve from another editor are likely using a professional colourist who wouldn't be used to using adjustment layers and so this limitation wouldn't annoy them. The people that are used to using adjustment layers are likely to be the folks that are doing all the post work themselves and are coming from a different NLE. So it's kind of a ransom situation where BM is effectively saying "if you want the greater colour grading potential of Resolve and you want to keep working the way you're used to, then you should edit in Resolve too....... and ditch your other NLE". It's a subtle thing, but can be important if that's a limitation on your workflow. I know that my workflow has definitely been hit hard a few times by "little" things like this before, even by things as small as if a function can be assigned to a hotkey or not.

On my last trip I ended up using the GX85 and 14mm F2.5 as the main setup, and the saved profiles defaulted to the lens being wide open at F2.5. I did a single AF (using the back-button focus method recommended by Mercer) and then hit record, and normally didn't AF again during the shot, although I only do short takes typically as I'm shooting for the edit. I also used the 2x digital zoom, so that emulated a 28mm F5 lens on MFT. According to the DOF Calculator, this lens wide open would have infinity in focus when focusing anywhere further than 17ft / 5m away. I have since done some testing and the lens is sharper than 1080p (which is what I edit in) when wide open, so not much advantage to stopping down other than for extra DOF if I want it. My videos are about the people interacting with the environment so DOFs that obscure the background aren't really necessary and beyond lending a bit of visual interest and depth to the shot, aren't desirable. The DOF with the 14mm wide open was almost too shallow for closer shots, as I'd want to show more of the environment. This was likely wide open, simply for the low-light advantage, but I wouldn't want to blur the environment any more than this: ..but it did provide a nice background defocus for detail shots - this one is with the 2x engaged: I've since decided that it's worth it for me to sacrifice a bit of speed for greater focal range, and will get the 12-32mm F3.5-5.6 pancake zoom when I travel next. I could just use my 12-35mm F2.8 lens, but it is significantly larger and I think the extra low-light (F2.8 vs F3.5) on the wide end isn't that much. I don't typically use the longer end in low-light situations, and definitely don't need the extra speed at the long end for DOF - at 3m/9'10" the 12mm F2.8 has a DOF of 23m/75' and at the same distance the slower zoom at 32mm F5.6 has a much shallower DOF of 1.6m/5'3. I can always carry that lens in my bag in case I need it, along with my 50/1.2 prime. Obviously having larger apertures for narrative work would be desirable because you want to have consistent T-stops across the range and also to have the potential to open up a lot more if it is artistically appropriate to the emotional arc of the story. Every good movie has a moment where the main character feels overwhelmed and disconnected, so needs a long shot of them with everything else blurred, right? 🙂