kye

@Emanuelhaha well, you know, life gets in the way. Since posting that, I've stayed plenty busy growing my little Utah-based production company — we did documentary and commercial projects in 10 different countries last year — while juggling getting married, having a little baby son, with another on the way now, so becoming a YouTuber on the side never quite worked out. Thanks for checking it out five some odd years later though, lol.  I always intended to get back to it, maybe I will at some point. 

Well, as expected, it’s an incremental release that reflects developments of the intervening nine years.

Not listed there but included is S-Cinetone, Slog-3 and custom user LUTs.
Not much that it doesn’t have really.
More details here
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1985961-REG/sony_rx10_v_digital_camera.html
Price is £2K which in the overall scheme of things is about what I expected because previous versions weren’t particularly cheap.
Might not be for a camera for everyone but for someone it could be the everything camera.
 

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. 

Lost in Translation was famously shot in Tokyo without official permission.  They shot in public with a very minimal crew and moved fast to try and keep ahead of the authorities.  They chose this approach primarily because it was almost impossible to get permission to film there at the time. 
I saw a great doco about the making of it but it's been removed from YT now so can't share it.
I don't know what sort of info you want to know to prep for your film, but there are snippets of BTS online if you dig.  This video shows a bit of BTS from on location (linked to timestamp):
From what I can remember / piece together:
shotonwhat says it was shot on Kodak 320T and 500T using Aaton 35-III Camera and a Moviecam Compact Camera with Angenieux and Zeiss Super Speed Lenses they moved fast to stay ahead of the authorities the cast and crew when out shooting in public was only a few people (camera, sound, director, and talent and I think that's it?) and were all non-Japanese people, and if anyone official came to tell them off the they would just be apologetic but use the language gap to effectively prevent any communication.  They had a Japanese fixer who stayed a distance apart from the group (so they wouldn't be noticed by the authorities) but that was helping with logistics etc and could step in if the situation required it they had challenges with locations (link to timestamp) another snippet of them on location - tripod but not clear if they're using any lights What information are you looking for specifically?

😝 not sure if i should be offended or not...  I vaguely remember him as a nikon guy ?  i watched few of his youtubes but there was something that didn't click with me, i didn't watch much of his stuff. 

Another thread where I'll mention the Insta360 Go 2/3/ultra or similar as an option.  The price is definitely higher than a Charmera, but in terms of size, it's maybe even a little smaller?  And with much better image quality.  From what I remember, the carrying/protective case in the Go 2 is about the size of an Airpods case and I've definitely kept those in my pocket before.
Matt Granger has entered the chat

Good on you for trying something different, i lost interest after the image quality comment.. For two reasons 1) i dont think it will happen, every 2 year old and up has already mastered mums phone, and their bigger and heavier than any action camera i think. Ergonomically and for useability i think there's real constraints to avoid when going much smaller in an action camera for the majority of people. If one wanted a tenfold increase in quality you'd just buy a second hand gopro i reckon or other action camera if your not a fan of gopros.
 2) I think the amount of people screaming for less sharpening on camera and letting the user deal with it is a very small segment of the market.  Which they have been able to ignore so far. Although with the amount of youtubes available on sharpening and grading online, manufactures may have to lift their game soon. In some instances its happening we have the mission1, now theres also 2 other action camera threads on the forum so we should be well catered for. 
 
 

At  $30   i'd buy one...  

If it had a decent camera I'd actually be interested. But the ones I've seen will all end up as e-waste eventually.
If it took photos (I don't really care if it takes video) that looked good on social media I'd be very interested though.

A couple of my cousins did this a couple of decades ago : ) with Kodak disposable 35mm film cameras.
No photographer, no wedding videographer at all ;- )

Love the way you put it! : ) As everyone of your posts BTW < 3 Thanks, always a pleasure reading you : ) Great-juicy-post BTW part II ;- )

I got a Kodak Charmera keychain camera recently.  It's terrible and you shouldn't buy one, but it is interesting.
In case you don't know, keychain cameras are seriously tiny cameras (think smaller than a GoPro) and have gone viral in the last year or so.  The Kodak Charmera is probably the most viral one, with multiple production runs being sold out very quickly and reissues etc.  Here's mine in comparison to some other cameras, including a couple of GoPro-sized action cameras and some actually pocketable cameras (GF3 and GX85).

Why is the Charmera interesting?  I think the design is essentially perfect:
It's incredibly small (obviously) and ridiculously light but it's actually quite tough It's got a 35mm equivalent FOV lens It charges from USB-C With almost any MicroSD card it has practically infinite storage It has a rear screen that is just large enough to navigate the (very simple) menu and frame shots It's super-simple to use, if you plug it into a computer it turns on, mounts as a USB drive (without needing any software), charges the battery while connected, then when you unplug it it turns off again It's a ~15Mbps motion JPEG codec It's USD $30 Why aren't I recommending it?
The image quality is terrible.  TERRIBLE. It says it has a 1440x1080 sensor, and that's the resolution of the JPGs and video files, but I think it's 2x2 binned, and heavily sharpened too, so it's a very poor quality VGA camera.  I shot a resolution chart - the moire was practically psychedelic. JPGs are just as bad as the video files No control over anything and with its AE it's perfectly happy to clip the crap out of decent chunks of the image Why am I even bothering to write about it then?
It's a new class of camera.
We haven't really had cameras that were smaller than action cameras before, but not only have we got them now, but they sold out multiple times, so the world (or at least the trendy impulse buying world) has solidly suggested there is demand for them.
As far as I can tell, the competitors are action cameras, or those that are smaller like the Insta360 Go, and that's about it.  Those are 10x the price though, and larger and not nearly as fun to use.  The image quality of them is vastly superior, but in todays market where I wish I could get a camera that was smaller, had a quarter (or sixteenth) the resolution, and was drastically cheaper, this is the kind of thing that didn't used to exist really.
Even just playing with it around the house, I film things I wouldn't normally film.  It feels different to use.  
This is a new product in the market that smartphones basically killed.
Everyone used to have small point-n-shoot cameras but they all got killed by smartphones - the industry essentially got eaten from the bottom up.  This is the first counter-example I'm aware of (other than action cameras).  I would venture that everyone who bought one already had a smartphone, so this fulfils a niche that their expensive fragile dopamine-addicting smartphone doesn't.  
Retro cameras have enjoyed a resurgence recently, but I would suggest that this is different as it's a new thing rather than an old thing limping along.  This might make executives take note - it's not that small cameras are dying slower than they think - there is active demand and innovation in this space.
Tech gets better.
Assuming this form-factor remains popular, the video quality will get better.  I don't know why it wouldn't remain around..  kids aren't likely to want to record themselves less in future, tiny things won't stop being cute, having something so small it takes up zero space in your pocket (it's a keychain camera!) won't stop being handy, etc.
What I'd really like to see is a 'pro' version of this camera..  one that takes real 1080p video and doesn't sharpen it like it's entering a butchering competition.  Same size (or a little larger), same simple design, could be more expensive and still be interesting.

The example pictures online are actually cherry-picked.  The images I'm seeing from mine are worse, to the extent I wondered if I got a fake.  When I looked closer I just think they chose the nicest ones, which is really just how social media works!
You'd be forgiven for thinking it's the lens, but it's really not.  Here is a sample image so you can see what I'm seeing.
Charmera - 1440x1080 - SOOC - 280K file size:

For reference, here's a 1440x1080 280K image from my GX85 with matched FOV:

The level of detail is incomparable.
What happens if I take the GX85 image and 2x downscale it to 720px then upscale it to 1440 280K again?

It's a lot closer, and obviously I haven't sharpened the crap out of it (just doing this quickly in Preview on Mac).
But what happens if I take a 3x downsample 480px, then upscale to 1440 280K again?

This is definitely lower resolution (the artefacts from the lower res are larger compared to the Charmera).
Charmera crop:

GX85 -> 3x downsample -> 1440px:

GX85 -> 2x downsample -> 1440px:

That's much closer.
What does all this mean?  The limitation is the processor.
I believe that they're using a 1440x1080 processor (as they claim) but they're using it in a 720x576 20p readout mode, then sharpening the crap out of it, then upscaling it to 1440x1080, converting it from 20p to 30p, then compressing it to ~15Mbps.
The colour isn't that great either, this may be a processing thing too, I'm not sure.
The issue is that for them to use the sensor in a 1440 readout mode would require 4x the data rates, which is 4x the processing.  If you want the file in real 30p instead of 20p padded out to 30p, that's another 50% again, so 6x the processing.  As we know from compact cameras that try and be 4K or 6K and also small, that's overheating territory.  It's also "batteries only last how long?!?!?!?!?!" territory.
So it would need to be 6x more powerful.  I'm not really sure how much extra space those things would require, although GoPro can now do 8K30, which is 16x the data rates of a 2K30 camera, plus its doing all kinds of stabilisation processing etc on top of that, so I'd imagine there is room for these things in such a device if someone was to make one.
Someone said that this circuit is likely a very common circuit in all kinds of cameras like dash cams etc, so it's probably only through economies of scale that this can be done.  There were quite a number of action cameras and other common cameras that had a real 1080p30 readout, so maybe the pro version could leverage one of those existing architectures of existing chips.  That would be pretty awesome!

Some kid will use that camera and make a short film and upload it to YT, then he'll get a Hollywood deal.
A couple will buy 30 of them and put then on the wedding guest's tables for people to snap photos and take some video. The groom will edit them all together on his phone while sitting on the beach during his honeymoon. He will also upload it to YT and probably get a Hollywood deal. lol. 

Me too. I see them and they look fun but the picture examples are so bad. The sharpening is the worst part of it (but likely to make up for the low quality lens.) Being the age I am, I don't get any nostalgia for the look of early digital cameras. I want a better image (even if it's small by today's standards.) It doesn't have to be raw but a higher bitrate JPEG would be great. The option to save two files, one raw (or log high bitrate JPEG) and a JPEG with an in camera filter applied would be good. Unlike the days of early digital cameras, there's no need to save storage space anymore.
I once had a little spy pen camera, no viewfinder, only 1 megapixel. It only held 12 pictures but they were pretty good quality considering the size. It was fun because you just pointed in the general direction and clicked. Only later when you got home you found out what you got. Not a design thing, just the limitations of the time. I got it for ten bucks or something and it was totally worth it for a bit of fun a few times. It sat in a drawer for twenty years and now doesn't hold a charge. It's not worth it for me to replace the battery.
 

I got a Kodak Charmera keychain camera recently.  It's terrible and you shouldn't buy one, but it is interesting.
In case you don't know, keychain cameras are seriously tiny cameras (think smaller than a GoPro) and have gone viral in the last year or so.  The Kodak Charmera is probably the most viral one, with multiple production runs being sold out very quickly and reissues etc.  Here's mine in comparison to some other cameras, including a couple of GoPro-sized action cameras and some actually pocketable cameras (GF3 and GX85).

Why is the Charmera interesting?  I think the design is essentially perfect:
It's incredibly small (obviously) and ridiculously light but it's actually quite tough It's got a 35mm equivalent FOV lens It charges from USB-C With almost any MicroSD card it has practically infinite storage It has a rear screen that is just large enough to navigate the (very simple) menu and frame shots It's super-simple to use, if you plug it into a computer it turns on, mounts as a USB drive (without needing any software), charges the battery while connected, then when you unplug it it turns off again It's a ~15Mbps motion JPEG codec It's USD $30 Why aren't I recommending it?
The image quality is terrible.  TERRIBLE. It says it has a 1440x1080 sensor, and that's the resolution of the JPGs and video files, but I think it's 2x2 binned, and heavily sharpened too, so it's a very poor quality VGA camera.  I shot a resolution chart - the moire was practically psychedelic. JPGs are just as bad as the video files No control over anything and with its AE it's perfectly happy to clip the crap out of decent chunks of the image Why am I even bothering to write about it then?
It's a new class of camera.
We haven't really had cameras that were smaller than action cameras before, but not only have we got them now, but they sold out multiple times, so the world (or at least the trendy impulse buying world) has solidly suggested there is demand for them.
As far as I can tell, the competitors are action cameras, or those that are smaller like the Insta360 Go, and that's about it.  Those are 10x the price though, and larger and not nearly as fun to use.  The image quality of them is vastly superior, but in todays market where I wish I could get a camera that was smaller, had a quarter (or sixteenth) the resolution, and was drastically cheaper, this is the kind of thing that didn't used to exist really.
Even just playing with it around the house, I film things I wouldn't normally film.  It feels different to use.  
This is a new product in the market that smartphones basically killed.
Everyone used to have small point-n-shoot cameras but they all got killed by smartphones - the industry essentially got eaten from the bottom up.  This is the first counter-example I'm aware of (other than action cameras).  I would venture that everyone who bought one already had a smartphone, so this fulfils a niche that their expensive fragile dopamine-addicting smartphone doesn't.  
Retro cameras have enjoyed a resurgence recently, but I would suggest that this is different as it's a new thing rather than an old thing limping along.  This might make executives take note - it's not that small cameras are dying slower than they think - there is active demand and innovation in this space.
Tech gets better.
Assuming this form-factor remains popular, the video quality will get better.  I don't know why it wouldn't remain around..  kids aren't likely to want to record themselves less in future, tiny things won't stop being cute, having something so small it takes up zero space in your pocket (it's a keychain camera!) won't stop being handy, etc.
What I'd really like to see is a 'pro' version of this camera..  one that takes real 1080p video and doesn't sharpen it like it's entering a butchering competition.  Same size (or a little larger), same simple design, could be more expensive and still be interesting.

I got a Kodak Charmera keychain camera recently.  It's terrible and you shouldn't buy one, but it is interesting.
In case you don't know, keychain cameras are seriously tiny cameras (think smaller than a GoPro) and have gone viral in the last year or so.  The Kodak Charmera is probably the most viral one, with multiple production runs being sold out very quickly and reissues etc.  Here's mine in comparison to some other cameras, including a couple of GoPro-sized action cameras and some actually pocketable cameras (GF3 and GX85).

Why is the Charmera interesting?  I think the design is essentially perfect:
It's incredibly small (obviously) and ridiculously light but it's actually quite tough It's got a 35mm equivalent FOV lens It charges from USB-C With almost any MicroSD card it has practically infinite storage It has a rear screen that is just large enough to navigate the (very simple) menu and frame shots It's super-simple to use, if you plug it into a computer it turns on, mounts as a USB drive (without needing any software), charges the battery while connected, then when you unplug it it turns off again It's a ~15Mbps motion JPEG codec It's USD $30 Why aren't I recommending it?
The image quality is terrible.  TERRIBLE. It says it has a 1440x1080 sensor, and that's the resolution of the JPGs and video files, but I think it's 2x2 binned, and heavily sharpened too, so it's a very poor quality VGA camera.  I shot a resolution chart - the moire was practically psychedelic. JPGs are just as bad as the video files No control over anything and with its AE it's perfectly happy to clip the crap out of decent chunks of the image Why am I even bothering to write about it then?
It's a new class of camera.
We haven't really had cameras that were smaller than action cameras before, but not only have we got them now, but they sold out multiple times, so the world (or at least the trendy impulse buying world) has solidly suggested there is demand for them.
As far as I can tell, the competitors are action cameras, or those that are smaller like the Insta360 Go, and that's about it.  Those are 10x the price though, and larger and not nearly as fun to use.  The image quality of them is vastly superior, but in todays market where I wish I could get a camera that was smaller, had a quarter (or sixteenth) the resolution, and was drastically cheaper, this is the kind of thing that didn't used to exist really.
Even just playing with it around the house, I film things I wouldn't normally film.  It feels different to use.  
This is a new product in the market that smartphones basically killed.
Everyone used to have small point-n-shoot cameras but they all got killed by smartphones - the industry essentially got eaten from the bottom up.  This is the first counter-example I'm aware of (other than action cameras).  I would venture that everyone who bought one already had a smartphone, so this fulfils a niche that their expensive fragile dopamine-addicting smartphone doesn't.  
Retro cameras have enjoyed a resurgence recently, but I would suggest that this is different as it's a new thing rather than an old thing limping along.  This might make executives take note - it's not that small cameras are dying slower than they think - there is active demand and innovation in this space.
Tech gets better.
Assuming this form-factor remains popular, the video quality will get better.  I don't know why it wouldn't remain around..  kids aren't likely to want to record themselves less in future, tiny things won't stop being cute, having something so small it takes up zero space in your pocket (it's a keychain camera!) won't stop being handy, etc.
What I'd really like to see is a 'pro' version of this camera..  one that takes real 1080p video and doesn't sharpen it like it's entering a butchering competition.  Same size (or a little larger), same simple design, could be more expensive and still be interesting.

Well just edited my first full set of stills and as expected, my S1RII utterly obliterates it in that regard.
Even without pixel peeping, it’s instantly obvious on my MacBook.
Probably on a phone or social media, would not notice, but actually editing the files, enormous gap including; detail, micro-contrast, WB handling, colour fidelity, higher ISO, you name it, it’s not any kind of contest.
But I never expected it to be and it’s where and what I expected it to be and that is good enough for the specific purposes I have for the L10.
Not tried the video yet and would expect that to be a closer contest.
Battery life is great!

I've shot a no budget feature film (partially) as a DP under similar circumstances last year. we had some permissions here and there to shoot in metros and train stations for a few hours, but mostly it was outside in the busy capital city. 
i'll share a still of it here, if somebody wants to see more stills I can DM a link, but at the moment I think it's best it mainly stays private considering the film is not finished yet. 

i do kind of think best to push back against the idea of total minimalism, or austerity especially in regards to crew. Other than the director and I, we had a 1AD, a PA, a makeup artist, sound guy, a focus puller, and on some days a grip or a gaffer (on the few moments we weren't just relying on available light). our director was someone who was frankly underexperienced and would generally completely abandon our preproduction plans, change the script all the time and was unwilling to listen to anyone else's suggestions other than the actors, which caused some tension from time to time. having these other people on your side to keep you in line can make this experience a lot more pleasant since it's hard to make films, no matter how small the scope is.
this was shot on a largely rigged up BMCC6K with some SLR Magic primes, and mostly on a cine saddle. I guess we we're pretty lucky with not being bothered by strangers while shooting, other than having some random people staring at the camera in a wide shot. 
also the thing with walking around in a medium 2-shot is that it is insanely boring, especially for a visual language. there's a reason that doesn't really happen in WKW's stuff. 

I assume some of you have heard this story... when Stanley Kubrick got his first Hollywood job directing a movie, he asked the cinematographer to switch to a different lens for the next shot. Instead, he moved the camera to get the shot. Kubrick asked him to put the camera back and switch the lens like he asked. The cinematographer told him it was the same shot if you moved the camera or changed the lens. Being a photographer in his previous life, Kubrick disagreed and said the perspective changed. Unless I'm remembering this story incorrectly, the man vehemently disagreed and refused to do what Kubrick asked, so Kubrick was forced to fire him and throw him off his set.
Of course there's a lot to lensing than just FOV, the question becomes how important does the perspective, in this case, matter? Kubrick was right, the shot changed and it mattered to him because it was his film. Would the audience have felt the difference in what he was trying to communicate with that specific lens, from that specific distance? Possibly. The question becomes how much does it affect yours.
I remember when I first got my 5Diii and the 24-70mm f/4. I was checking the light on the talent and lining up my shot and the image looked a little flat, so I zoomed in and stepped back and the talent popped. In that instance, I used a little bit of 1,2 and 3 I suppose. I can't lie and say I did this to emphasize any theme or symbolism, I was merely looking for a shot with a bit more dimension so I zoomed with the zoom and zoomed with my feet... it was that moment I knew I was a pro in my own mind.

Chungking Express by Wong Kar-Wai
Absolute masterclass in film making.
Think it was shot in S16mm film, but the most impressive thing about the film was that he shot it in 2 weeks whilst waiting to edit Ashes of Time. The script/story changed whilst they were filming and they shot on location in Hong Kong.
I think if you're going to write to make a film, keep it simple - if you look at Wong Kar-Wai's early films like Chungking Express, Fallen Angels, In the Mood for Love etc. - the premise is always simple/basic and they shine a focus on very few characters which really draws you in and with quite limited dialogue.
He creates a mood and you should use the environment where you are filming to make it another character in the film, which complements the atmosphere you are trying to create in the story you are telling.
Having filmed a lot for TV in cities etc. it really makes you focus on what you are trying to do and ultimately achieve - you've got to do things quickly and ignore what is actually going on around you, get the shot and be ready to be adaptable.

I've been thinking about lenses a lot over the last few years, and just to be cheeky I've put some observations into a framework.
Level 1 is where we start - with zooms
The normal start to using lenses is with zoom lenses, probably the kit lens.
We know the thinking at this stage: its convenient, you stand in one place and zoom, hooray!
Level 2 is what most YT lens videos are about - primes are better than zooms
We all know the arguments.  Primes make you "zoom with your feet", they make you learn about perspective, they're sharper, better in low-light, BOKEH!!!!1, you can learn the FOV and develop an instinct for it, vintage ones are cheap, "real photographers / cinematographers use primes!"
There are approximately 1000 billion videos and tutorials explaining this, but this seems to be where the thinking stops.  I've not seen that much stuff that goes beyond this, but this is really just the start.
Level 3 is where understanding begins - zooms and primes have their uses
Almost none of the discussion up until this point acknowledges that lenses create images, and images have aesthetics, and aesthetics are what is actually being discussed.
Moving to talk about motion pictures now, and cinema especially, there is a bunch of nuance that Level 2 doesn't really discuss.
People have decided that FF sensors are the most 'cinematic' and typically are used with FF vintage lenses.  This means that the FOVs are 24mm / 28 / 35 / 50 / 85 / 100 etc, with maybe a 40mm in there if you're getting fancy.
These weren't the FOVs of cinema though, because cinema was S35.  So the FOVs of cinema using the 50/40/35/27/18 were really like 75mm/60mm/52.5mm/40.5mm/27mm.
It gets stranger when you add anamorphic into the mix.  If I go to B&H anamorphic cinema lens category and sort by best sellers, we get:
 - DZOFilm Arcana Anamorphic Prime 3-Lens Kit, which are FF and 32/45/75mm and 1.5x, so on FF they are: 21mm 30mm and 50mm
 - BLAZAR LENS Talon 50mm T2.1 1.5x, which is FF and equivalent to a 33mm
 - Sirui Saturn 35mm T2.9 1.6x which is FF and equivalent to 22mm
If you're using the standard FF lenses on a FF camera, you are using the FOVs that stills photographers used, rather than those that cinematographers used.
Shooting on S35 sensor size (or crop mode) with FF lenses can create some of these in-between FOVs too.
People at Level 2 thinking probably won't be swayed by the above.  I would imagine the thinking is take a step forward or back, what's the difference?
Level 4 is where understanding begins to mature - enter the feedback loop
The feedback loop is where you realise that the focal length changes how you shoot.
A ridiculous example to illustrate it.  You decide to shoot on only a 28mm on a FF camera, but when you frame up a close-up shot, the distortion makes the talent look awful, so you take a step back and now the footage feels more distant because we're not seeing the talents face so much because there are no close-ups.  
We all know about perspective from level 2 thinking, but the level 3 thinking was that taking a step forward or back was no big deal, so which is it?  This stuff is subtle, but (like all feedback loops) it pushes us to act differently and this can create a cascade of changes over time.
Level 4 thinking realises that this dynamic is powerful and pervasive.
I shoot in public, so I don't control the environment.  I discovered that if I shoot with a 35mm FOV then I can get environmental portraits of my friends and family from close enough that people won't walk in-between me and them, but moving beyond a 45mm I'd either get shots of them that were tight and didn't really show their environment that well, or I'd step back and be struggling with people walking in-between me and the subject, which is a completely different situation.  How would I respond to this?  I might shoot from eye-level instead of chest height.
Now I've changed the shot angle because of a FOV change.  
If I shot from eye-level for a while I might notice that I get more attention and now I find that the people interacting with my subject are more aware they're being filmed and keep looking at the camera.
Now my subjects are acting differently because of a FOV change.
If I asked someone the difference between shooting with a 35mm and 45mm would they think it would change the shot angle and subject behaviour?  Not with the Level 2 thinking of "primes are sharper! duh!!", or the Level 3 thinking of "just take a step back! duh!!".
What about controlled sets?  
Sure, on a controlled set there aren't random people walking in-front of the camera, but now we're talking about actors and all the dynamics that goes on there.  
Can great actors deliver amazing performances while the matte-box is only inches from their face?  Sure.  Do YOU have actors that are that good?  I don't think so.
Can great production designers change a set to accommodate a camera being further away, while keeping the frame looking the same?  We know that as we move the camera back the subject gets smaller in frame, and that as we do that the background gets smaller but not nearly as fast as the subject does.  This is great if you are only filming the subject and don't really pay attention to the composition of the entire frame.  But you're a talented cinematographer, so you want to move back a bit and keep the same composition, which means that production design needs to 'cheat the camera' and basically rearrange every item in frame that isn't in the very background.  I remember shooting a student film in a cafe and every setup required moving the vase of flowers on the table the subject was sitting at.  That vase probably used two-thirds of the area of the table!
I watched a video recently where a street photographer tested a 40mm prime for the first time.  They didn't know what to make of it, having only a week to shoot with it before they had to release their video review.  What struck me wasn't that they didn't know what shooting with a 40mm was like, it was that they didn't seem to understand that there's a period of learning that goes on, they didn't understand that the feedback loop exists.  
I realised they had 'learned' each focal length by memorising its attributes (which Level 2 photographers will crap on at great length about), rather than having learned them for himself by following a process where you explore the feedback loop and see how it makes you feel and how it makes you act and how the world responds to that, and how you respond in turn, and how the loop feels and matures over time, and how to make the loop go faster etc.
I recently spent some time in a small town in rural Japan and shot the same location with FOVs equivalent to 71mm, 82mm, and 100mm.  I went out for a walk each night with one of those lenses, going out for perhaps an hour or two.  Shots that were possible with one were not with the next, shots that were great with one were lifeless with another.  As I walked down the same road from my accommodation seeing the same shots night-after-night and making different framing decisions with each lens (and deciding to take the shot or not to bother as it didn't work) I noticed that I made different decisions to walk one way or another as certain subjects required different FOVs and distances to make them.
I've also spend a lot of time, over several trips, shooting night scenes with 68mm and 71mm FOVs.  In some locations I can make some shots and not others, while in other locations I can take different shots.  If I'm shooting across a road then the width of that road (combined with my FOV) determines the type of shots I can take.  After taking a number of those types of shots I start to adapt to how I'm shooting these locations.  The more I shoot the more everything feels different.  Level 3 thinking says "just take a step back, what's the difference?" and when shooting in those situations the difference between a 35mm and a 50mm feels like it's a span where there are several complete aesthetics in-between the 35mm end and the 50mm end.  Thinking about shooting a 50mm FOV vs an 85mm FOV feels like travelling to a different country where things look similar but feel very different in practice.
I know I'm barely scratching the surface of Level 4, and perhaps there are levels beyond this that I'm unaware of, but it's just amazing to me that almost no-one seems to talk about anything beyond Level 2.  It's probably controversial to say, but I deliberately avoid almost all stills-only people because the thinking seems so rudimentary in comparison to people who shoot moving images.  You can feel the limited thinking and the "well, actually!!!!" responses where they miss the entire point entirely because one lens is sharper or something ridiculous.
Anyway, hopefully this helps.  I've not really heard anyone talk about this stuff, which seems a shame as the rabbit hole is very deep and to only talk about ankle-deep water seems silly.

Exactly, that is the interesting part for me too.
I don’t think the best use of this will necessarily be obvious “POV footage” in the usual action-camera sense. The more interesting uses may be the almost invisible ones: situations where the camera is there, alive, following attention, but not constantly being operated in a way that announces itself to everyone in the room.
Your point about parallax and offset is completely fair. If the camera is too far from the head, then the head direction and the actual camera perspective will never match perfectly. But I am not sure that perfect matching is always the goal. In many documentary or making-of situations, what matters is not to reproduce the exact optical perspective of the eye, but to reduce the burden of manual operation and preserve a more natural relation with the subject.
That is why I find it interesting for BTS, documentary and observational work. Not as a perfect substitute for a shoulder camera, not as a Steadicam either, even though, as a gimbal camera, it belongs to a lineage that goes much further back, including the invention that so impressed Kubrick that Garrett Brown ended up operating his own system on THE SHINING. I see it more as a small autonomous B-camera, or a reactive camera system, able to follow intention without forcing the operator to constantly lift, aim, correct and therefore disturb the situation.
In a film set, for instance, the value may be precisely in allowing the device to become boring after a while. If people stop reacting to it, or react to it less than to a conventional camera operator moving around with a visible setup, then it starts doing something useful.
So yes, I think the strongest uses for it may be almost invisible. Not spectacular POV shots, but the kind of footage that exists because the tool reduced the amount of intervention needed to capture it.

I've been thinking about lenses a lot over the last few years, and just to be cheeky I've put some observations into a framework.
Level 1 is where we start - with zooms
The normal start to using lenses is with zoom lenses, probably the kit lens.
We know the thinking at this stage: its convenient, you stand in one place and zoom, hooray!
Level 2 is what most YT lens videos are about - primes are better than zooms
We all know the arguments.  Primes make you "zoom with your feet", they make you learn about perspective, they're sharper, better in low-light, BOKEH!!!!1, you can learn the FOV and develop an instinct for it, vintage ones are cheap, "real photographers / cinematographers use primes!"
There are approximately 1000 billion videos and tutorials explaining this, but this seems to be where the thinking stops.  I've not seen that much stuff that goes beyond this, but this is really just the start.
Level 3 is where understanding begins - zooms and primes have their uses
Almost none of the discussion up until this point acknowledges that lenses create images, and images have aesthetics, and aesthetics are what is actually being discussed.
Moving to talk about motion pictures now, and cinema especially, there is a bunch of nuance that Level 2 doesn't really discuss.
People have decided that FF sensors are the most 'cinematic' and typically are used with FF vintage lenses.  This means that the FOVs are 24mm / 28 / 35 / 50 / 85 / 100 etc, with maybe a 40mm in there if you're getting fancy.
These weren't the FOVs of cinema though, because cinema was S35.  So the FOVs of cinema using the 50/40/35/27/18 were really like 75mm/60mm/52.5mm/40.5mm/27mm.
It gets stranger when you add anamorphic into the mix.  If I go to B&H anamorphic cinema lens category and sort by best sellers, we get:
 - DZOFilm Arcana Anamorphic Prime 3-Lens Kit, which are FF and 32/45/75mm and 1.5x, so on FF they are: 21mm 30mm and 50mm
 - BLAZAR LENS Talon 50mm T2.1 1.5x, which is FF and equivalent to a 33mm
 - Sirui Saturn 35mm T2.9 1.6x which is FF and equivalent to 22mm
If you're using the standard FF lenses on a FF camera, you are using the FOVs that stills photographers used, rather than those that cinematographers used.
Shooting on S35 sensor size (or crop mode) with FF lenses can create some of these in-between FOVs too.
People at Level 2 thinking probably won't be swayed by the above.  I would imagine the thinking is take a step forward or back, what's the difference?
Level 4 is where understanding begins to mature - enter the feedback loop
The feedback loop is where you realise that the focal length changes how you shoot.
A ridiculous example to illustrate it.  You decide to shoot on only a 28mm on a FF camera, but when you frame up a close-up shot, the distortion makes the talent look awful, so you take a step back and now the footage feels more distant because we're not seeing the talents face so much because there are no close-ups.  
We all know about perspective from level 2 thinking, but the level 3 thinking was that taking a step forward or back was no big deal, so which is it?  This stuff is subtle, but (like all feedback loops) it pushes us to act differently and this can create a cascade of changes over time.
Level 4 thinking realises that this dynamic is powerful and pervasive.
I shoot in public, so I don't control the environment.  I discovered that if I shoot with a 35mm FOV then I can get environmental portraits of my friends and family from close enough that people won't walk in-between me and them, but moving beyond a 45mm I'd either get shots of them that were tight and didn't really show their environment that well, or I'd step back and be struggling with people walking in-between me and the subject, which is a completely different situation.  How would I respond to this?  I might shoot from eye-level instead of chest height.
Now I've changed the shot angle because of a FOV change.  
If I shot from eye-level for a while I might notice that I get more attention and now I find that the people interacting with my subject are more aware they're being filmed and keep looking at the camera.
Now my subjects are acting differently because of a FOV change.
If I asked someone the difference between shooting with a 35mm and 45mm would they think it would change the shot angle and subject behaviour?  Not with the Level 2 thinking of "primes are sharper! duh!!", or the Level 3 thinking of "just take a step back! duh!!".
What about controlled sets?  
Sure, on a controlled set there aren't random people walking in-front of the camera, but now we're talking about actors and all the dynamics that goes on there.  
Can great actors deliver amazing performances while the matte-box is only inches from their face?  Sure.  Do YOU have actors that are that good?  I don't think so.
Can great production designers change a set to accommodate a camera being further away, while keeping the frame looking the same?  We know that as we move the camera back the subject gets smaller in frame, and that as we do that the background gets smaller but not nearly as fast as the subject does.  This is great if you are only filming the subject and don't really pay attention to the composition of the entire frame.  But you're a talented cinematographer, so you want to move back a bit and keep the same composition, which means that production design needs to 'cheat the camera' and basically rearrange every item in frame that isn't in the very background.  I remember shooting a student film in a cafe and every setup required moving the vase of flowers on the table the subject was sitting at.  That vase probably used two-thirds of the area of the table!
I watched a video recently where a street photographer tested a 40mm prime for the first time.  They didn't know what to make of it, having only a week to shoot with it before they had to release their video review.  What struck me wasn't that they didn't know what shooting with a 40mm was like, it was that they didn't seem to understand that there's a period of learning that goes on, they didn't understand that the feedback loop exists.  
I realised they had 'learned' each focal length by memorising its attributes (which Level 2 photographers will crap on at great length about), rather than having learned them for himself by following a process where you explore the feedback loop and see how it makes you feel and how it makes you act and how the world responds to that, and how you respond in turn, and how the loop feels and matures over time, and how to make the loop go faster etc.
I recently spent some time in a small town in rural Japan and shot the same location with FOVs equivalent to 71mm, 82mm, and 100mm.  I went out for a walk each night with one of those lenses, going out for perhaps an hour or two.  Shots that were possible with one were not with the next, shots that were great with one were lifeless with another.  As I walked down the same road from my accommodation seeing the same shots night-after-night and making different framing decisions with each lens (and deciding to take the shot or not to bother as it didn't work) I noticed that I made different decisions to walk one way or another as certain subjects required different FOVs and distances to make them.
I've also spend a lot of time, over several trips, shooting night scenes with 68mm and 71mm FOVs.  In some locations I can make some shots and not others, while in other locations I can take different shots.  If I'm shooting across a road then the width of that road (combined with my FOV) determines the type of shots I can take.  After taking a number of those types of shots I start to adapt to how I'm shooting these locations.  The more I shoot the more everything feels different.  Level 3 thinking says "just take a step back, what's the difference?" and when shooting in those situations the difference between a 35mm and a 50mm feels like it's a span where there are several complete aesthetics in-between the 35mm end and the 50mm end.  Thinking about shooting a 50mm FOV vs an 85mm FOV feels like travelling to a different country where things look similar but feel very different in practice.
I know I'm barely scratching the surface of Level 4, and perhaps there are levels beyond this that I'm unaware of, but it's just amazing to me that almost no-one seems to talk about anything beyond Level 2.  It's probably controversial to say, but I deliberately avoid almost all stills-only people because the thinking seems so rudimentary in comparison to people who shoot moving images.  You can feel the limited thinking and the "well, actually!!!!" responses where they miss the entire point entirely because one lens is sharper or something ridiculous.
Anyway, hopefully this helps.  I've not really heard anyone talk about this stuff, which seems a shame as the rabbit hole is very deep and to only talk about ankle-deep water seems silly.

I'm once again reminded of Noam Kroll, who has gone a long way into this rabbit hole.  
My recollection of his method was a balanced approach, where you make a plan and then improvise and adapt within a limited range.  My impression was that he would storyboard things as a way of mentally rehearsing the shoot, and would end up with a clear idea of the logistics of the shoot, the equipment required, etc.  Location scouting and anticipating the light etc as you normally would.
I believe he also gained a clear idea of which shots were required, and which had some flexibility.  Then when he was shooting he could make sure that he got enough for a functional edit, but was also clear enough in his thinking that he could adapt the plan to compensate for any challenges that arose and also to take advantage of any serendipity or inspiration that occurred.
I suspect that this is a very deep skill, to plan and then improvise a shoot with an understanding of how the choices being made will go together in the edit.  I know enough about editing to know that it's a jigsaw puzzle where you can have two small sequences that work well but don't cut together directly, so unless you can find a way to get from one sequence to the other then you have to change one of them so they're compatible.  To do this for a whole scene, or whole film, in your head while you're still shooting it is beyond what I could even imagine, but I'm sure that the talented cinematographers are easily up to the challenge.
Noam actually went further, describing a process where he worked with two actors and where he 'designed' what would be shot ahead of time, with the major plot points and story beats, but didn't fully script it.  On each day of shooting the three would have breakfast and discuss the motives of the characters and how the scenes should go.  Then they'd shoot while improvise the scenes, filming as they went and exploring ideas.  It was freedom within a planned structure.  
I believe he was shooting one or two days a week, and so after shooting he'd review the footage and do rough edits, seeing what worked and what didn't.  Then he'd 'design' the next shoot day accordingly, sometimes keeping on with his overall plan for the story but other times seeing something in the footage that made him adapt the narrative.
I suspect that the skill is in knowing how much you can stray from the plan and knowing in which ways to adapt to make the end result better than if you just shot it as planned without any adapting to the situation.
Certainly if you make a plan and then prioritise which shots are the most to least important then you'll have a good chance of coming back with a functional edit.  My impression of great travel content is that most shots are good-but-not-great, and the art is in the edit and how they're combined.
EOS-M and primes and a Fujinon-TV 14-70 f/2 will do a lot of the heavy lifting in making it look like cinema instead of video.  In my mind you'll need to pay attention to how to keep the camera stable and then look at your references and study their coverage so you can design yours.  
By shooting on less than pristine equipment, you'll have to get things right in-camera as you won't be able to mess with it in post as much.  Specifically, being able to zoom in a little in post can be useful if a random passer-by is staring.  If you were shooting this with a modern mirrorless and sharp/neutral lens then I'd suggest using the highest resolution possible just so you have that flexibility.  
Your concern for getting stared at is legitimate, but the focus is to not get people staring while they're in the frame.  As such I'd suggest getting more coverage using tighter framing and shallower DOFs, and for shots that are wider, simply getting more footage so you can edit around people staring.  AI can potentially help if there are random people staring in shots you really want to use, but if you can edit around these moments (or prevent them from being in shot in the first place) then all the better.
It's also worth considering that there are a number of things you can do that will lessen the changes of people noticing you and the camera, or lessen the people who are currently in frame noticing it.  
Another strategy is to investigate how much b-roll can be used in the edit without it taking away from the story.  You may be able to get away with putting b-roll on top of a good audio edit, essentially having an L-cut followed by a J-cut where the audio goes from one character to the another but the visuals go via a b-roll shot from the location.  I'm sure there's a deep art to doing this, but it's worth grabbing as much b-roll as you can while on location (especially if shooting has to wait for any reason but you're able to shoot).  You can even return at a later time to get more footage, or better yet, take your kit and go shoot the location ahead of time so you can do a dry-run with the actual rig and also get a sense of what the location is like to shoot by actually shooting in it.