kye

So far, we have:
The French Connection The Day Of The Jackal Escape From Tomorrowland Chubby Rain Woody Allen (Annie Hall, Hannah and Her Sisters, Deconstructing Harry) Lost in Translation I think this is a great list! I know that Sean Baker’s Tangerine was shot this way, but I’d rather not sit through another of his films.
 
I've written a drama short. Two characters, 11 pages, lots of walking around town. I live in Portland and I’ve shot all over town before without ever once being hassled (except by some in a crisis of mental health). But I’m really more interested in seeing what kind of aesthetic choices might even be available to me when balancing that with coverage needs, moving quickly, and not attracting too much attention.
I'm always so envious of New Yorkers for this very reason. You can fill the frame with sidewalk commuters and often no one will even bother to give you a second glance. I can’t think of any other US cities where this is true. 
Lovely screen grabs, Kye. If any of these were publicity stills for a film, I’d want to check it out. Especially the 68mm shots. Great mood and sense of place.

I think that this quote sums up some of the decision-making that I am facing. I could totally go in there and “wing it”, just figuring out my shot as I went. But I want to rely on natural light, which means timing certain shots for certain times of day, and then that raises the question of how much planning I want to put into each scene, and ultimately how the visuals will compliment the story. I’d rather not lean too far into the documentary aesthetic.
After shooting my last five shorts with my C70s, I’m actually thinking about shooting this film on a hacked EOS-M with c-mount lenses. I’ve been collecting them for a while and have three sets of primes, plus some great zooms. I’d personally put the aesthetic available with this (windowed) sensor and these lenses up against anything, I like it that much. I think the reason that no one really wants to do this is because it’s one of the most difficult digital cameras to work with, AND on top of that, the most difficult lenses to work with. But I’ve been tackling the challenges presented by these one by one, and I think I have them pretty well sorted. We shall see!

Current plan is to hide a Deity PR-2 recorder with a lav on each actor and attach a timecode box to the audio input of the camera. Stabilize with a steadybag. Transmit the image wirelessly to a producer and make up artist in a car, along with refreshments for the actors. If I end up working with long zooms, I might give direction over a phone and provide a discrete earbud to each actor so that I could also monitor.

Further to the above, and further to what Mercer wrote..
The smaller the camera package the more amateur and less pro you look, which impacts how the authorities treat you Often locations care if you have a tripod or not, especially in crowded situations where a tripod takes up a lot of space and is a tripping hazard.  Alternatives to a tripod are obviously hand-held and also shoulder-rig, but the often overlooked options are a monopod, and Mercers trick of having a monopod where the foot is resting in a pocket of a belt, so the camera effectively gains the stability of the operators waist Depending on the focal length and type of shot (medium, close-up, etc) the primary consideration in crowded places is if people will walk in between the camera and subject.  My travel shooting with my family was done mostly on a 35mm F1.9 equivalent and this enabled medium-close-ups and closer in very crowded places without anyone getting in-between and wider than that with people or obstacles in-between.  If you want to get more distance than that and not get wider then you'd need to go to a 50 or tighter depending on the distances involved.  I personally find this hugely situationally dependent as it depends on how crowded things are, how noticeable the operator is, how willing to walk in front of a camera people are (or how much/little they care about you) etc. Combined with the distance / density / shot-size / focal length interactions are the DOF considerations, specifically how much do you want to separate your subject and at what distances.  Normally this also blends into low-light requirements but I think these days if you use a dual-ISO camera then that consideration drops away and you can get by with F2.8 or even F4 at night in well-lit areas.   The main reason that aperture isn't an obvious choice (just go F1.4!) is that if you can choose a slower lens then you can consider a zoom, which changes the shooting equation drastically.  Depending on how you're planning and scheduling the shoot, the ability to move fast without changing lenses might be considerable.  The French New Wave approach of getting minimal coverage and preferring longer takes is something to consider.  There's a huge difference in logistics between storyboarding the whole thing within an inch of its life (and having many setups and doing hair/makeup/wardrobe touchups between takes etc) and running the whole scene a couple of times with a wider master then going a bit tighter and grabbing the more interesting shots as colour for the edit.  Noam Kroll has shot short films on film and only had ratios of 2:1 or similar, and for certain sections only shot one take because he wanted to spend more film on making the important parts more interesting. For aesthetics it's also worth considering what you'll do in prod vs post.  The traditional prod approach is to use filtration and select a lens / aperture combination that gives the rendering you want, and then you'd shape the light and control your lighting amount and ratios etc to suit your ISO/aperture/filtration.  This makes prod very cumbersome and if you don't control the location perhaps impossible.  The alternative approach is that you choose much more neutral equipment and push a bit of a look in post.  There are obviously limits to this, but for example by picking a lens that's sharper across its range you can vary the aperture to control DOF and exposure in prod and then degrade it in post (soften it globally and in the corners, add distortion, add diffusion, add vignetting, etc) and you'll have a consistent look despite using the lens at different apertures, etc. Think about DR.  The more DR the camera has the less of the scene you will clip and the more flexibility you'll have to adjust exposure and ratios etc in post without making the clipped areas visible.  The less DR you have the more carefully you'll have to expose, and the less flexibility you'll have with moving shots that go between dark/light areas.  The more DR you have the less you need to vary the aperture on the lens to compensate, or the less you'll need any lighting etc to compensate. Think about the contrast of the final film.  The more contrast you apply, the more leeway you will have with the cameras DR, so the previous point gets easier.  Film was great in this sense as the negative was so wide and flexible and gave a lot of leeway in post. Monitor as well as you can.  Use a large monitor and a viewing LUT.  The more you can visualise the end result while shooting the better.  I find that shooting in uncontrolled situations means there are always things in the frame that I'm reacting to.  This is in alignment with the situation and performance too - shooting in crowded public places will have the cast reacting to their surroundings, so you should be reacting to their performance and to your surroundings too, so the more clearly you can see the shot the more coherently you can react to it. Embrace the chaos.  Separate the ideas of controlled coverage and creative experimentation as much as you can.  The idea of getting a master in the can and then experimenting is great because you can ensure you've got an edit that can work and then you can grab risky but potentially great shots after that.  Much better to have the final edit cut between neutral shots and really great shots that embrace spontaneity and add to the film than struggling in the edit by having to cut between shots that are neither safe nor creative nor sensitive to the surroundings. Some example 35mm F1.9 shots I've taken (please ignore the grading - these were from a long time ago!!!):




More recent shots with 68mm F1.5 equivalent:




and more recent with 70mm F2.0 equivalent:







If you really wanted a minimal set of focal lengths, I'd suggest a 28mm for wides and ultra-packed situations, a 'normal' lens in the 35-50mm range, and a longer one in the 70-100mm range for shots where you are at some distance and don't want a wide.
Your aesthetic should really begin with the emotional arc of the characters in the film, filtered into scenes, then the equipment chosen to express the intended aesthetic while shooting in the specific circumstances of the location and logistical assets and challenges. 

Further lens contemplation reminded me of my Tokina RMC 28-70mm F3.5-4.5 for m42 mount, which is deliciously imperfect, and when combined with an ultra-cheap wide-angle adapter gets even tastier..





I've struggled with this lens because the main issue with it is that it's a dumb lens and so there's no way for the cameras IBIS to know what focal length it's at.  This is fine for tripod work, but that's not really how I shoot, and if it was tripod work is slow enough that I could just use primes.
Then I realised that as I now own an EF speed booster I can get an EF zoom lens and it should report the current focal length to the camera and the IBIS challenge goes away.
As such, I started looking for the absolute worst, most imperfect, least sharp, EF zoom lens I could find.  Luckily, if you search ebay in ascending price it makes these gems obvious and you can peruse at your leisure.
So I have now snapped up a lovely Tokina zoom that according to the Pentax forums has decidedly poor optical performance.  Hooray!!  Pics when it arrives, but I'm excited.  
I was also made aware of the existence of the Tokina AT-X PRO F2.8 zooms, which are interesting, but a long way from the top of the (price ascending) ebay search results.  I also found a couple of the F2.6 Angie designs too, those were $3-4K..  wow!!  Being famous on the internet sure makes things more expensive!

Well stated @eatstoomuchjam @kye :- )

It allows you to operate the camera fully remotely so it is fundamentally the same thing.
To be honest, if I was going to use such a thing then having a compact palmable remote is more appealing than walking around looking like I’m holding a crucifix like the Luna option.
But it’s one more thing to carry so there is that.
The head tracker is very smart and for people doing instructional videos it is excellent - even if it does look like you are carrying ET in a papoose when you are out and about.
I guess the drawback is that it is excellent for seeing what you are seeing but falls down as a concept when doing the other 50-75% of what vloggers do which is getting their own face in reacting to what they are seeing.
One issue might be trying to be discreet as you have to look at someone and ET sat there swivelling to do the same does draw more attention and gives off a mobile surveillance unit vibe.
It such an eye catching feature though that I would expect DJI to be emulating it soon.
 
 

It’s arrived.
Immediate observations…
Each to their own and all that, but the size is perfect.
Over the past near 20 years, I have only had a couple of ‘personal’ cameras starting with the GF1.
I still have that one (somewhere) and last time I tried it, it felt somewhat clunky and slow. No big surprise, it is getting on a bit!
X100 which is a strong contender for fave camera of all time for its time. Again, it would be terribly slow today, but SOOC, produced the best ever JPEGs of any camera I have ever owned. Not necessarily (and not actually) the sharpest or most detailed, but specially compared with high MP full-frame cameras, but just a certain ‘filmic’ magic about those 12 MP files from that sensor.
Sony RX100v. A fiddly little bastard. Great video, very average at best stills. Too small.
Sony ZV1. Again, a better video unit IMO, hated the stills experience.
So here we are with the L10…
I’ve set it up to mimic the set up of my S1Rii’s that sit above my S5ii…which sits above my S9 (that I am unlikely to see again before mid July as I head off on a near 4 week road trip in a couple of days).
I still need to import any LUTS and I’ll start with my Phantom one’s for the S5ii which I currently use for the S1Rii’s also.
If anyone fancies making a LUT to bake in based off the new L Classic Gold, I’d be interested 😬

That’ll have been Arsenal fans thinking they were going to win the Champions League.
There was a similar book in the early 80s by Douglas Adams and John Lloyd called “The Meaning Of Liff” which used the names of places and assigned them with a definition of a new word.
AITH (n.) The single bristle that sticks out sideways on a cheap paintbrush.
BANFF Pertaining to, or descriptive of, that kind of facial expression which is impossible to achieve except when having a passport photograph taken.
ELY (n.) The first, tiniest inkling you get that something, somewhere, has gone teribly wrong.
 
etc.
I have just got a new passport which has a terrible Banff that I will now have to endure for ten years.

"Old look" has a similar function to "film look". Both separates the content from reality by not being accurate. Modern camera are capable of representing the real world as it is, like they're just mirrors. But the artist wants to make a dream for the audience. You don't perceive a mirror image as a dream. 

I hadn't heard of it before. Thanks.  It reminds me of when the chain store Restoration Hardware first opened up in Canada. They were buying up old patents and remaking products from 100 years ago. I would have nostalgia for these things (tools, kids toys, appliances) then realized I had never seen them before. Even my grandparents didn't have these things (Canada, before the 1980s had our own manufacturing and design of goods so typical appliances and tools that everyone had were different than the US ones that Restoration Hardware remade.) It was funny how easy it was to create an environment in a store that you would get caught up in. Good store though and unique product line. Sadly, about ten years ago though they did a redesign of the company (probably for more shareholder profit) and now it's just another Bed, Bath and Beyond knock-off. There's no reason to go there anymore.

Agreed..  You've likely heard of the term "anemoia" which is from The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows which aims to come up with new words for emotions that currently lack words, and it means "Nostalgia for a time or a place one has never known".
It's gaining popularity too, with that blip being April 2024...

I think a lot of people feel the world was a brighter and more optimistic place in the 90s and 2000s so it’s a way of putting their current selves back into that time.
Easy to write that off simply as nostalgia but I think at this present time it’s actually a deeper thing as a coping mechanism.
 
 

I do think nostalgia, even for a time someone wasn't alive for, is a big factor. Another is authenticity, the title is telling on the comparison video. Which is "more authentic?". I think with so much fake stuff out there, or over polished, commercial media, that there's naturally a desire for something real. 
I know a young woman, in early 20s, who last year shot in miniDV for the nostalgia and poor quality. That surprised me because I remember when miniDV was considered high quality (compared to what low budget video makers had access to previously). Things move on. 
There's also trends, as the saying goes, when hemlines are down they can only go up. Now that people can do 8K pristine video easily and cheaply, then low quality and dirty is a refreshing change. About 12 years ago I was searching for, and found, a pocket camera that saved in raw. It was great and I loved how I was able to edit in post nicely, etc. This year it died and so I pulled out the old jpeg-only camera from the drawer and I've been shooting with it. Now, instead of cringing when I see the jpeg artifacts, I accept it as a normal look for a cheap snapshot and kind of a style that's now "approved" by others (at least on YouTube.) The ergonomics are great too. I can have it in my side pocket and while cycling, reach down with one hand, put my hand in the wrist strap, turn it on and take pictures without stopping. You can't do that with a phone. I sometimes wish that the amazing image stabilization and other features that iPhones have was available in a little pocket camera. 
Anyway, I can dig all sorts of things. It's just another brush to choose.

Perhaps it is the algorithms giving me content I am likely to be interested in, but none of my social media feeds give me posts where old camcorders or old digital cameras are seen as desirable from the point of view of achieving a particular look. I have heard about it, but I suspect it could be mainly in particular algorithm-created bubbles. People who are interested in serious photography and video work with good image quality tend to be given that kind of posts and so on. 🙂 There are certainly people who are fascinated by old things. I like steam engines myself, and sometimes photograph steam trains because of the visual and auditory aesthetics, although I recognize that the steam engine did gross harm to the environment, air quality, caused fires, lots of CO2 emissions etc. Despite these I really like the sound and feel of it. 🙂  
 
 

have you guys seen Spektrafilm? It now has an OFX plugin, and possibly an ios app on the way too, and it's free!
https://spektrafilm.114c.de/

That would make it perfect for my 10mm Cmount, not so perfect in regards of noise in 4K, compared to the GX85. The GX85 hack from @BTM_Pix allowed a forum member to get 200mbps HD running on the GX9. The stock HD is supposed to be very good in regards to resolution looking at the dpreview comparison tool. I am tempted to check this camera out sometime. I still love and use my GX85 btw. The 8bit 4K is indeed amazingly good for what it is and grades better than it should allowed to do in regards of spec sheet numbers. Nice results you are achieving with yours. @kye

I should have some soon @kye @PannySVHS
I say ‘soon’ as in shooting, but as to getting around to being able to even look at it…
Currently already in a 6 week log jam (see what I did there?) which gets longer week by week 🤪

Fascinating to say the least : ) His text and voice included ;- )

The below video titled "Retro camcorders are EASY to use in 2026 (full guide)" was posted two years ago and has 241K views.
It opens with these shots:



and his first line is "retro camcorders are freaking awesome".
Maybe you're right that getting worse image quality isn't the primary motivator, but if it wasn't then I don't really know how to explain why anyone would be attracted to these camcorders when new/modern ones have all the same advantages of being a single-use device, have great ergonomics, novelty value, etc, but are also far easier to find, far easier to use (and don't require legacy computer interfaces!), are far more reliable, and have much better image quality.
Maybe the draw is that they're old, and therefore that's the novelty, but I've heard people gush over how they love the JPEG look from cameras that have 2MP cameras and the JPGs are hugely compressed and full of artefacts etc.  
Here's another one comparing Hi8 vs MiniDV on the basis of the image alone..  24K views!
It might also be a nostalgia thing, where the image quality is desirable because it's poor, but in exactly the right way.

OK, I have a black one inbound and should be landing tomorrow or Thursday…
I tried to get the LTD version but has to come from PannyBoy direct and they have zero stock, so black it is.
My S9 is still not fixed and I have missed it on the first 3 jobs of the year and with 5 more imminent, can’t wait any longer.
On the off chance my fixed S9 does turn up prior to these next 5 jobs I am away for, I’ll use both as a bit of a test but regardless, probably have a place more now for the L10 until an S9II comes along.
My experience of not having a mech shutter has not been the greatest and the role either of these units is destined for is more photo, so…

Good points from @eatstoomuchjam.  That's why I went for the sharpest frame grabs I could find - considering the range of variables involved a soft looking grab might have been a scanning issue or provenance issue or there might have just been movement in the frame.
Now that I've done that analysis I'm wondering where to from here.
One thing I can do is to take my S16mm emulation and scale it 50% of the size and then adjust my power grade to match the grain and halation etc, and see if that looks like a 35mm scan (it should - that's how film works!!).  If so then I can proceed on that basis, but if not then I might have to get feedback and iterate again to get something appropriate.
Once I've got that sorted out then I should be able to interpolate / extrapolate the parameters that needed changing and get a range of looks that vary from 8mm up towards 16 and 35mm and then beyond.
At that point it'll be interesting to explore different combinations of:
Film sharpness and grain Lens emulations Filtration (diffusion etc) From these I should be able to get a range of common looks, inspired by different combinations like:
8mm shot on-the-go Bolex 16mm camera shot at night
The look: Faster 16mm film with mediocre prime lenses shot wide open Krasnogorsk-3 16mm camera during the day
The look: Slower / clearer 16mm film with standard zoom lens (17-69mm F1.9 Zenit) shot stopped down 35mm film camera with master primes, or Cookes, or Panavision C-Series & T-Series, etc
(I have a few lens tests with many of these lenses so should be able to recreate something that smells vaguely right by changing the vignetting, edge softness, CA, bloom, etc) I'd imagine that certain combinations will be more convincing than others, as we've likely come to associate certain image attributes together.  
Obviously I won't be recreating them faithfully, but simply by taking inspiration from these a range of looks can certainly be developed.  One thing I have noticed is that lens designers often get custom requests from film-makers to tune a set of lenses to have a customised response.  For example maybe they want the speed and bokeh from a set of lenses to remain as-is but want more/less horizontal streaks and much more diffusion, etc.  This is noteworthy because if film-makers are are interested in different combinations of lens attributes then I don't feel like I need to try to get a perfect emulation of one lens or another either - it doesn't matter so much when you view it from a creative perspective rather than engineering perspective.  
This is why my goal in my S16 emulation project wasn't to emulate this or that film stock, but rather to get something that looked like it was shot on some unknown stock with unknown provenance (e.g. maybe it's expired or wasn't stored well etc).  

Yes, it's on my radar too.
Their Discord server is where the action is if anyone wants to follow along or get involved.  Sometimes there are even daily updates so it's very much still in development.

These are really nice. The best is the footprint. I played around with SpektraFilm but didn't do much with it. I should try it again.

Raw pictures taken with a OnePlus 8 pro modded, lens used: Linos Mevis 16mm F1.6 

Wonderful!  Great eye and great images.  Definitely in the direction of Koyaanisqatsi etc, not only with the images themselves but the shifts in theme too.
Everyone should do themselves a favour and watch it!

In a sense it's much better than people give it credit for.
In terms of bit depth, what matters is how close (or not) the bits are to each other in terms of what hues / luma they describe.  We all know that 8-bit LOG is worse than 10-bit LOG.
In general, the below are roughly equivalent:
- 8-bit 709 == 10-bit LOG == 12-bit Linear
- 10-bit 709 == 12-bit LOG == 14-bit Linear
and the killer...
- 6-bit 709 == 8-bit LOG == 10-bit Linear
The challenge with 8-bit 709 is that the 709 from consumer cameras is essentially a creative picture profile, and so when you try to grade it there will be all sorts of tints or knees and elbows in the gamma etc.  If you try and convert from 709 back to some sort of LOG space for grading it makes the image much more flexible, as I outlined in my 8-bit REC709 is more flexible in post than you think thread, which showed that with some care you can turn this:

into this:

However, this is a "naked" transform without any look applied, so once you add in a transform with some flavour (like the 2383 LUT) then you can get an even more consistent output, turning this:

into this:

@Framed_By_Dan the above thread is worth checking out as it has a lot more detail, but the crux of it is to make sure you're using the right colour spaces etc, which FilmConvert should be capable of doing I would imagine..  Adding a film look will help obscure any shot-to-shot differences, and would probably give a decent set of tools for making small changes that are normally needed between shots when working with footage not shot on a closed soundstage.
I think the reason people are so dismissive on 8-bit 709 is because when it was out, the colour grading tools people had access to were primitive and the colour grading knowledge was minimal, however when 10-bit LOG came in everyone needed to convert and people with specialist knowledge built LUTs that looked really good, and then after that the tools got a lot better and people started learning how to grade.  I think had those tools and knowledge been around when 8-bit was the norm then people would have gotten a lot more out of it.  
The examples above show absolutely unforgivable exposure and WB errors and the results are good enough to be amateur-level.  Had these been the variations that someone even semi-competent would have in their footage, the results are likely to be basically flawless.
Indeed you should!!! 😆😆😆
Seriously, everyone has their own standards and looks for different things, so me saying it's good enough won't carry any weight for you using it on your projects (and it shouldn't) because we shoot differently.  
The sensor is 4592px wide, which with its 10% crop in UHD, means the normal mode is reading 4174px across (which seems an odd number actually).  If we assume the 2x is half that width (and not half the full sensor) then that gives us 2087px wide for the 2x crop.  I always shoot 4K so I get the 100Mbps bitrate, but edit on a 1080p timeline, so any artefacts will probably be obscured in post for me.  Depending on what you're shooting, how sharp your lenses are, and your timeline resolution you may get quite different results I'd imagine.
I've got a few S16 c-mount lenses and some have wider image circles than others, with my Risespray 35mm F1.6 c-mount even covering the full MFT sensor on my GH7!  Definitely worth testing and they can add some great character to the image without taking up a lot of space and making the rig really big (unlike using adapters and vintage S35 or FF glass).
Also, definitely recommend using FilmConvert for this, as not only is it likely to be a more accurate film emulation (it's film emulation, whereas the Film Look Creator is just that, a Look Creator that creates Film LOOKS), but also it should have settings for input and output colour spaces, so if you set these correctly then you should be able to adjust exposure and WB in a pretty neutral way.
I've been using the Standard colour profile, with Contrast / Sharpness / NR all turned down to -5, and Saturation left at zero.  If you're using different profiles then I suggest shooting some test shots in both Standard and your normal profile, then pulling them into FilmConvert and playing around and seeing which you prefer.  All the profiles on the GX85 do quite significant things to the colour, rotating hues, lightening and darkening different hues, changing the saturation of different hues, etc, so there is no neutral profile and it's just a matter of taste.
If you get some good results I'd be keen to see them so please feel free to share them!