kye

Def getting there. As you said, bokek is better when it's not distracting, like in most of your recent images.
That and the very contrasty-darker frames make the image better.  I think that's it. You'd just have to add a couple of actors that move within the frame to fill the last piece of the visual puzzle.

Thank you!
From what I understand, this is how it works for both the types of raw where Resolve has the option.  Maybe sometime, I'll play with those suggestions, but it'd still be more work than just clicking a box for supported footage.  Though it's not a huge loss since the difference is fairly subtle anyway.
 
Yeah - if the info is there, there's also the option of bringing down the ISO/exposure in the raw tab and then using curves or lift to bring up the exposure in the shadows.

They mention it at 1:06:21 - below is linked to timestamp:
I must admit that if BM camera supports it then it's a step towards it being supported in Resolve.  It's not currently listed on the BM website, but that makes sense as (IIRC) no iPhone can record it yet:

I'll be ordering a new phone and my GH7 already records Prores RAW internally, so I'll be in a strange place where both my main cameras support internal Prores RAW but my NLE doesn't!
😆 😆 😆

Off topic, but nice image. 

Raw controls, at least for my Ronin 4D 8K are pretty basic compared with some other editors, but the most important stuff is there.  I'd like to see black and white point adjustments in the raw tab, but there are other tools that can be used in a node to accomplish similar things.
Highlight recovery would be nice too.
Maybe more advanced controls will come in subsequent versions.
 

and also confirmed here (linked to timestamp):
 

Also, the new iPhones all use a new "Apple Log 2" profile, so that will require Resolve to be updated as well to support the new colour space:

They mention it at 1:06:21 - below is linked to timestamp:
I must admit that if BM camera supports it then it's a step towards it being supported in Resolve.  It's not currently listed on the BM website, but that makes sense as (IIRC) no iPhone can record it yet:

I'll be ordering a new phone and my GH7 already records Prores RAW internally, so I'll be in a strange place where both my main cameras support internal Prores RAW but my NLE doesn't!
😆 😆 😆

I can vouch for the GH7 as a workhorse.
In terms of low light, I'd say it's fine.  Here are a couple of stills from the GH7 with the Voigt 17.5mm F0.95 lens.  I can't remember if the lens was fully wide-open or not, but I think the GH7 was at ISO 1600?
These have a film grain applied, so the grain is deliberate.  GH7 ISO tests are available online if you want to see the grain at various settings.  Also remember that NR exists in post, and compression does a pretty good job of NR as well.
The first shot is lit from the candle and the light of the fridge:

and this is just the candle:

Here's are some shots from the OG BMMCC from 2014 at its base ISO of 800, the 12-35mm F2.8 lens and shot at a 360 shutter to cheat an extra stop.  These locations looked about this bright with the naked eye, and I have excellent night vision.







You actually need far less low-light performance than most people think.
Thanks!
The issue is that you're either showing a very wide FOV, which will have significant distortions, or you're cropped in to the point where the quality is low because you're cropping out most of the data.
IIRC, If you have a 100Mbps 360 image then by the time you crop to the FOV of a 24mm lens you're down to something like only a few Mbps.  This is why I said the bitrates are what matters most.

100% agree about the size, and when compared to the GH5 the difference in the hand is a lot more than what it looks like in pictures, so it's sort-of deceptively chunky.  By the time you're looking at a GH7 "small camera" territory is so far off you can't even see it in the rear-view mirror!
Perhaps the compromise is that the GH7 has an integrated cooling fan whereas neither the R5 nor Z6 III have it, and will be a larger again by the time you add on additional accessories etc.

Hello dear friends,
I've been running like a motherlicker, but I just wanted to take a moment that personally thank everyone who jumped into this thread to offer their support!
Right now I'm caught in all the extras in and around bicycle and support equipment etc. I'll update towards camera here when I get a little further along...
Until then... I'm wishing you all well in your life and cinematic adventures! 🙂

I don't really use the audio for dialogue so can't really comment on it specifically.
To zoom out and think more holistically about sound, and also a bit about getting in front of the camera, there are a few approaches.
High-quality sound on location.  
This is great but you pay for it in terms of paying for extra equipment, extra faff of charging it, setting it up, using it, cleaning and maintaining it, etc.  High-quality in-camera audio is the most convenient and the most expensive to get.  External audio makes it easier / cheaper but creates extra work to keep the audio files managed and to sync them in post.
Acceptable sound on location.
This could be through a combination of average in-camera audio and average external audio.  
The in-camera audio could potentially using on-camera mics like the Rode VideoMicro or a plugin Lav mic that don't require any power and are plug-and-forget but are dependent on the quality of preamps in the camera.
The external audio could be as simple as using a smartphone right next to your mouth, or using the integrated mic in the headphones as a short lav mic.  I've seen lots of vloggers do this in very noisy environments and it works fine.  First example, second example.
Record in post.
ADR (Automated Dialogue Replacement) is where actors re-record their dialogue in post production to match their lips in the footage.  It is so common that many films simply didn't bother to get good sound and created the audio (dialogue, sound effects, sound design, the lot) in post after the fact.  I've done this before on short films and if you take a bit or time to do it then you can get results indistinguishable from doing it on-location.
Recording in post also comes into the idea of appearing on screen, or not.  
By taking lots of notes and recording your thoughts during the trip (potentially just using voice memos on your phone at the end of each day) you can then narrate the finished film and have a significant presence in the finished edit, have high quality audio, and also take away the burden of getting great audio for everything that happens throughout the whole trip.
Narrating the film will also enable you to communicate ideas and feelings and information in a concise way with carefully chosen words, rather than trying to piece together a coherent summary from fragmented snippets of footage.
Narrating the final piece also takes a huge burden off the footage too, because anything you didn't capture can be explained in V/O so the film doesn't rest solely on the footage to be self-explanatory, which is a high-bar to achieve. 
There's a hidden mindset that you're at the cutting edge of (and being cut by), which is that the entire film-making industry assumes that anyone wanting high-quality equipment doesn't mind it being large, and that if you care about size then you don't care about quality.  I've gone round and round with people online and it's like "small and good" is a combination that somehow doesn't exist in their world-view.
This has lessened over recent years, but is still the elephant in the room.
Speaking of the elephant in the room, be careful not to lose sight of the final prize, which is an engaging final product.  I don't know how much editing experience you have, but making a doc is like making a bunch of lego pieces without knowing what you're eventually going to want to make, then designing the building, and then trying to assemble the building out of the lego blocks you have made.  Obviously those with a lot of skill will be able to anticipate the final result better, and will make better pieces, but to a certain extent the more pieces you make and the more variety you include, the easier it will be to assemble the finished product you want.
This is why I advocate for setups that:
1) you will use (giving you more footage)
2) is fast to use (giving you more footage of things that happen quickly)
3) is flexible (giving you more variety of footage)
4) is enjoyable to use (making you more likely to use it and also making the whole thing more enjoyable and more likely to be successful overall).
Remember, this person is ready for anything, but misses almost everything switching equipment, and has a hernia by the end...

You should start with the idea of just using your phone and only add equipment that will make the end result better, not worse.

To me, these are my favorite images yet -- by a long shot. I may need to reconsider my position on vintage zooms!

Nice! The contrasty light makes this images much more interesting than the previous flat ones.

As the poster above said, the cinema look is hand-crafted.
I would add dramatic lighting to your list. Think of the great Italian chiaroscuro painters from the XVII century.
By nailing that artistic expression you're 99% into cinematic. Lots of light makes things uninteresting, didactic.

Whoops, we did blow right by that focusing direction one didn't we lol. I just automatically go to super takumars when I think of awesome character, slower, and readily available primes for cheap, they're the kings.

To be fair, it's in the list of preferred characteristics, so maybe theres some wiggle room for the right set.
If it's a requirement, I'll double down on my Olympus OM recommendation and also throw out SSC Canon FD lenses,  there's a 17mm 4, 28mm 3.5, 35mm 3.5, and a 50mm 3.5 macro and 100mm f/4 macro.

Bonus/wide lens could be the 24-35mm 3.5 L which might be just over budget. 

OP asks for lenses that focus the Canon way....
Queue long discussion of lenses from Nikon, Pentax etc.
OP asks for lenses that are slow to use wide-open....     responses include stopping down faster ones!
😆 😆 😆
Lots of people really just waiting for you to finish talking so they can go back to stream of consciousness without any thinking required!

I went away for the weekend and came back to find some cool posts on this thread!
There are definitely benefits in terms of consistency. I still haven't been able to find a vintage zoom with a useful focal length that focuses in the right direction and doesn't have smeary bokeh. Also, I'm not a huge fan of the 12+ element stacked flares that usually come with those lenses. The best I've been able to find it he Olympus 35-70 f3.6 but I wouldn't call it a character lens.
I saw this video about a year ago and tried to get one. I had a seller mislabel their listing and ended up with the variable aperture version. I was pretty irritated by this and it went into a drawer, only coming out when I dropped it off at Goodwill. I haven't looked again since.
Or f4 on S35. Absolutely. That's a case for M43 that is seldom made. But it also kind of forces you into wide, expensive glass. At least for vintage lenses. It's a bit of a catch 22.
Bought this one a couple of years ago. It wasn't for me. I was in agreement that it was the worst Nikon lens I'd ever tried. 
I found one of these with an M42 mount a few years ago. I really thought that it would scratch the itch but my copy was remarkably sharp. Amazing for the first zoom ever made.
This is actually a pretty neat idea. It might also work with step-down rings. It could also be a good way to standardize light transmission between lenses. I think I'm going to try this.

Canon FD might do it - price might be an issue perhaps?  Plenty of F3.5 or F4 lenses in the lineup, they focus the way you want, and you even get a choice of coatings (normal, S C, or S S C).  Some of the slower ones are macro lenses too!
https://cameraville.co/blog/list-every-canon-fd-lens-ever-made
Zooms are also an excellent idea.
An out of the box idea is to use faster lenses, but to keep the aperture wide open and cut a round hole in a lens cap and get the aperture you want that way.  I'm not sure if this would reduce the DOF in the right way?  It would definitely lower the exposure though, and would definitely keep the bokeh the shape you want.

I've played with diffusion before and not really liked it, but diffusion is a difficult topic because (the way I see it) it has four broad effects depending on the size of the diffusion.
The largest size of diffusion spreads light across the whole frame, reducing contrast.  I'm not really a fan of this one.
The smallest size spreads light into neighbouring pixels and essentially is the same as blurring the image.
The medium-large size spreads light between objects in the frame, creating halos and a strange appearance I'm not fond of.
The medium-small size spreads light far enough that it softens texture in the image.  This is why all the Hollywood actresses wanted diffusion because it hid any skin imperfections.  Apparently Cooke lenses all have this kind of diffusion in them but only for the frequencies of light around skin-tones - potentially a key part of the "Cooke Look".
Going back to your previous comment:
This has stuck in my head and after re-watching the Gawx videos I suspect this might be contributing to it.
I might have to do some investigation on this.
Also, now I have the anamorphic adapter and my new wide angle adapter, I'll step things up in terms of making things look a lot dirtier.  Anything in particular you think I should test?  (apart from having people in the image, which I think will end up being me).
 
 
 

I don't really use the audio for dialogue so can't really comment on it specifically.
To zoom out and think more holistically about sound, and also a bit about getting in front of the camera, there are a few approaches.
High-quality sound on location.  
This is great but you pay for it in terms of paying for extra equipment, extra faff of charging it, setting it up, using it, cleaning and maintaining it, etc.  High-quality in-camera audio is the most convenient and the most expensive to get.  External audio makes it easier / cheaper but creates extra work to keep the audio files managed and to sync them in post.
Acceptable sound on location.
This could be through a combination of average in-camera audio and average external audio.  
The in-camera audio could potentially using on-camera mics like the Rode VideoMicro or a plugin Lav mic that don't require any power and are plug-and-forget but are dependent on the quality of preamps in the camera.
The external audio could be as simple as using a smartphone right next to your mouth, or using the integrated mic in the headphones as a short lav mic.  I've seen lots of vloggers do this in very noisy environments and it works fine.  First example, second example.
Record in post.
ADR (Automated Dialogue Replacement) is where actors re-record their dialogue in post production to match their lips in the footage.  It is so common that many films simply didn't bother to get good sound and created the audio (dialogue, sound effects, sound design, the lot) in post after the fact.  I've done this before on short films and if you take a bit or time to do it then you can get results indistinguishable from doing it on-location.
Recording in post also comes into the idea of appearing on screen, or not.  
By taking lots of notes and recording your thoughts during the trip (potentially just using voice memos on your phone at the end of each day) you can then narrate the finished film and have a significant presence in the finished edit, have high quality audio, and also take away the burden of getting great audio for everything that happens throughout the whole trip.
Narrating the film will also enable you to communicate ideas and feelings and information in a concise way with carefully chosen words, rather than trying to piece together a coherent summary from fragmented snippets of footage.
Narrating the final piece also takes a huge burden off the footage too, because anything you didn't capture can be explained in V/O so the film doesn't rest solely on the footage to be self-explanatory, which is a high-bar to achieve. 
There's a hidden mindset that you're at the cutting edge of (and being cut by), which is that the entire film-making industry assumes that anyone wanting high-quality equipment doesn't mind it being large, and that if you care about size then you don't care about quality.  I've gone round and round with people online and it's like "small and good" is a combination that somehow doesn't exist in their world-view.
This has lessened over recent years, but is still the elephant in the room.
Speaking of the elephant in the room, be careful not to lose sight of the final prize, which is an engaging final product.  I don't know how much editing experience you have, but making a doc is like making a bunch of lego pieces without knowing what you're eventually going to want to make, then designing the building, and then trying to assemble the building out of the lego blocks you have made.  Obviously those with a lot of skill will be able to anticipate the final result better, and will make better pieces, but to a certain extent the more pieces you make and the more variety you include, the easier it will be to assemble the finished product you want.
This is why I advocate for setups that:
1) you will use (giving you more footage)
2) is fast to use (giving you more footage of things that happen quickly)
3) is flexible (giving you more variety of footage)
4) is enjoyable to use (making you more likely to use it and also making the whole thing more enjoyable and more likely to be successful overall).
Remember, this person is ready for anything, but misses almost everything switching equipment, and has a hernia by the end...

You should start with the idea of just using your phone and only add equipment that will make the end result better, not worse.

100% agree about the size, and when compared to the GH5 the difference in the hand is a lot more than what it looks like in pictures, so it's sort-of deceptively chunky.  By the time you're looking at a GH7 "small camera" territory is so far off you can't even see it in the rear-view mirror!
Perhaps the compromise is that the GH7 has an integrated cooling fan whereas neither the R5 nor Z6 III have it, and will be a larger again by the time you add on additional accessories etc.

I can vouch for the GH7 as a workhorse.
In terms of low light, I'd say it's fine.  Here are a couple of stills from the GH7 with the Voigt 17.5mm F0.95 lens.  I can't remember if the lens was fully wide-open or not, but I think the GH7 was at ISO 1600?
These have a film grain applied, so the grain is deliberate.  GH7 ISO tests are available online if you want to see the grain at various settings.  Also remember that NR exists in post, and compression does a pretty good job of NR as well.
The first shot is lit from the candle and the light of the fridge:

and this is just the candle:

Here's are some shots from the OG BMMCC from 2014 at its base ISO of 800, the 12-35mm F2.8 lens and shot at a 360 shutter to cheat an extra stop.  These locations looked about this bright with the naked eye, and I have excellent night vision.







You actually need far less low-light performance than most people think.
Thanks!
The issue is that you're either showing a very wide FOV, which will have significant distortions, or you're cropped in to the point where the quality is low because you're cropping out most of the data.
IIRC, If you have a 100Mbps 360 image then by the time you crop to the FOV of a 24mm lens you're down to something like only a few Mbps.  This is why I said the bitrates are what matters most.

Your checklist is a good start however everyone has their own perception of what defines "cinema". People have been chasing cinematic vibes long before DSLRs and mirrorless cameras were a thing. This forum has been part of that journey, evolving alongside gear and trends.
Online, “cinematic” usually means widescreen bars, shallow depth of field, slow-mo coffee shots, and the latest LUT everyone’s hyped about. Anamorphic lenses are popping right now, which probably explains why a lot of camera bros are jumping ship to Lumix to chase that look.
My point I guess is that there’s no single “cinema look.” Real cinema is about intention and personal choices. It’s the lighting/exposure that sets the mood, the colors that tell the story, natural dynamic range, and framing that pulls you in. The texture your gear adds, your lens choice, and how you pace things.. that’s what really gives something its look.
That’s why directors like Lynch, Soderbergh, and Baker sometimes break code and ditch the big rigs for DV, iPhones, or 35mm. Not because they can’t get a polished image, but because they want immediacy, rawness, and the happy accidents you just don’t get with giant setups. Baker’s Anora used 35mm not for nostalgia, but for the discipline and energy it forces, kind of like his iPhone stuff on the reverse end of the spectrum. Whether those projects click with you visually is personal, but that doesn’t make them any less cinema.
Sure, high-end productions lean on ARRI, RED, or Venice with top glass. But smaller cameras get their day too. The FX3 showed up in The Creator, F1 & Severance because of its low-light chops, portability, and multi-cam flexibility. When matched up right, it can hang with the big boys.
Chasing the cinematic look is totally valid, especially if it fires up your creativity. Again, your checklist is legit, but remember it’s always evolving and should serve what you want to say. Sometimes the weird or unexpected choices end up making something fresh and your own.

And now due to the overreach of the online safety bill in the UK, the government are determined that they will be in the room with us.
With regard to the look, have you got anywhere local to you that has featured in a programme/film that you like ?
Might be an idea to take a screen grab, put it on your phone as reference for framing and basic time of day and see if you can take some footage to get anywhere close to emulating it.