DanielVranic

Must say, my A7CII is maybe my favorite camera i've ever used. It checks every box repeatedly.

You think I honestly haven't looked? What the literal fuck is the point of this forum if i'm going to be told to "Google It" when i ask a legit question. I've been a member of this forum for nearly 10 years. I'm keenly aware that many people here do in fact have insider knowledge, and you had literally no reason to respond to me if you didn't have anything to add. I would have vastly preferred you just said "i don't think so" and moved on. Do me a favor, and move on. Don't respond again to this thread, you're not helping anyone including yourself. You must have better things to do right?

With autofocus like I specifically mentioned?

Good Morning! Over the last three years I have scaled back from doing pro-work almost entirely. My career went into a different direction and I'm quite happy with that. Also my days of manual focus are done! Never again. That being said, I do still carry my A7CII around with me everywhere along with my 20-70 F4 G and 35mm f1.8 and have been making some "cinematic" home movies and vacation videos haha. I hate that term as much as the next guy, but the IQ out of this system has been excellent. Now, I have the itch to get into anamorphic lenses. I'm into anamorphic to preserve as much data from the sensor as possible so going 1.6-2x doesn't gain me anything as I'd lose the sides to cropping. I don't pay much attention to new releases and am probably fairly behind but are there full-frame anamorphic lens options on the market just yet? I would just love a ~35mm T2 with AF and a 1.33x squeeze that covers Full Frame. I thought I had heard of a new line called "Mantis"(?) but not sure if that's an autofocus system or if it will be. Should i just hold out another year and everyone will be making one?

I bought an A7Cii + 20-70 F4 G purely for travel use, and its since become my main camera for everything. The jump in AF quality over the A74 is notable.

That is what I am doing for the last few months w the Rokinon DS and what I am trying to avoid doing anymore. I do respect that feel and look and ill be keeping my Rokinon + adapter for those cases, but for 99% of what I do, its the wrong choice.

I really appreciate everyones insight here, extremely valuable to my thought processes. Something I should bring up - I am no longer doing any type of work that would require 2 bodies and for what I want my "new life" with this camera to be is as rigged-down as absolutely possible. To me; that means no external batteries, no monitors, 1-2 lenses max, rode lavs + rode shotgun and thats about it. Hopefully it would fit in just one backpack. My commercial days are entirely done, and while I would LOVE to have many bodies for different uses, which is exactly how I USED to live with Canon DSLR's and Blackmagic's or C200's I just do not have the mental bandwidth for it anymore. I am grateful for the idea though! I know it's the best way to live, but I need to make some compromises.

Thanks so much!! in a perfect world i'd find an A7S3 or FX3 w 24-70 on ebay for $3000 and id be satisfied for another 10 years ! FX30 is BIG TIME on the radar, but for stills i really don't think it'll cut it. Too much of a compromise in that department

Thanks so much everyone!!! The Panasonic is absolutely on the radar, the Nikon as well, but a part of me does want to leave that look and feel of a camera to a much more modern solution. Maybe the Z6m3 would be a good idea whenever it comes. Something else that was brought up by a coworker- the Sony A7CII- with the AI AF, dedicated video settings and higher bitrate 422 recording. However it does appear both the Panasonic and Sony have some serious rolling shutter. The XT4 i have now does have some very visible jelly on quick pans so having that get worse wouldn't be super ideal.

Oh sweet haha! 1. AF is much bigger deal to me than I had ever initially thought it would. I do enjoy the "feel" focusing manually but frankly Im not proficient enough at it to rely on. Continuous, Face, Eye and Subject would all be really nice. Moving closer and farther from frame (like in a doc-style follow shot outdoors) or for face tracking indoors. Usually f2.8 2. I use a 17-70 f2.8 for most work, along with the Fuji 35mm f2, 23mm f1.4 (Viltrox) Fuji 18-55, and I have access to the 16-55 but dont use it anymore. Speed is key, as I often am shooting at the observatory or in the city. At f2.8 I am usually running ISO3000 or so on the Fuji which is the absolute max I can push it. 3. Low Light improvement over the XT4 is paramount 4. Not very, I will usually only be shooting 3-8min long. takes at the most. however in the humid summers I can imagine that getting hot. So thanks for the follow up! Definitely priorities are 1. AF Performance 2. Low Light Performance

Hi Yall! Hope everyone's various holidays went well! So I have been working on a short form doc about the work I do in astronomy and astrophotography since September, fully shot on the Fujifulm X-T4. This camera has been my personal vacation/family/road trip camera since it came out and for stills it's been such a king. I absolutely love the image that comes off this camera. In a past life, Ive worked as a content creator for a few venues in town making commercials and social videos, as well as filming the artists and bands in local studios. We used lots of BMD, Sony, Canon and even Arri one time. The Good old days that have forever cursed me with expensive taste and high standards for IQ. To the point: Using the XT4 for a documentary shoot so far has been 50/50. 50% of me loves the IQ and the files are robust enough for a good amount of mangling in Resolve. I know it's 10Bit-420 but it does hold up for most things I do nowadays unless I underexposed, which is a me problem and not the camera's fault. The other 50% is how horrid the AF has performed to date. Seems that with native, 3rd party, and 3rd party adapted lenses I get the same unpredictable AF response with a very large amount of focus hunting and un-usable Face-Eye AF. Really bummed me out for run and gun work, as swapping to manual lenses means a monitor and another item to carry around and power. Im not a pro anymore, so a low-profile setup is really what I am chasing and this XT4 has doubled in volume and mass since filming began, just to accommodate the monitor! The final nail was during Christmas I decided I wanted to make a quick little home movie with my family that showed what we did over the holiday weekend. AF struggled in brightly lit rooms, at all focal lengths and lenses. That was it for me. I set the camera down in my office and decided that 2024 was new camera year. Let me be clear- No one watches what I make, it's purely for me but its gotta perform how I expect. Even my old a6000 and a6300 would have done laps around this. I haven't shopped for a camera body in years (Got the XT4 through a trade) and frankly do not have any idea where to start, but I usually trust tribal knowledge over a retailer so here I am. I see Fuji's new XH2s has gotten a billion "hybrid of the year" awards, but so did my XT4 and I just can't trust Fuji's AF right now. Ive seen a few of Sony's latest offerings, but a bit lost on the differences on a couple models. Canon seems to be behind, purely based on what I read here and on MirrorlessRumors. Panasonic is neat (just became a dealer for Panasonic and can order bodies at dealer cost for myself, so this is VERY neat) but hearing iffy reactions to the AF performance and Andrew's battery issue as well. So for someone who has a mid-budget (3K including 24-70 zoom lens is hopeful) mid-talent (havent shot pro in 5 years) and is mid-serious (I want my vacation videos looking good, dammit!) I am a bit lost on what the hell to look for! I seek the tribal knowledge of this forum! TL:DR Havent camera shopped in 10 years, current camera doesn't cut the mustard for what I now do and don't know where to start for my budget.

Little update! Thank goodness for Notion! I was able to import all my "interview" questions and responses into a few columns and then organize the shots and B-roll around each "block". It made my ideas and thoughts so organized that I am so excited to start rolling! My partner leaves for vacation tonight, and she is my interviewer, and camera op for the shots at the observatory and coffee shop so I will hold off most filming until then.

Once again, thanks so much for the insight here. I appreciate it. I have done alot of work on watching my friends videos, watching travel YT channels and I think I have a good idea of how to frame and shoot this. Outlining of a script has started, and funny enough.. I need to actual still do some REAL astronomy during filming too so I can't forget to actually do a good job with this. Me and my partner set up my light and did a short fun walkthrough of my kit with the Rode ME system outside last night. Footage looks OK, but at ISO4000 at 2.8 it was still quite dark. Reviewing the footage, I really dont think Im happy with just how mushy/noisy it is - even on the well exposed areas. However... I set the camera to MF for a bit and you entirely right.... Whats worse? Underexposed and noisy, or out of focus? Well, out of focus is the worse answer. My partner attempting to follow me, and then me setting it manually and walking around - I was out of focus 80% of the time. Much more un-usable than noise.

Oh! Another thing I wanted to say. When I quit this end of my career, I QUIT. I sold lots of stuff, but alot of it was simply mothballed and thrown in my basement or studio closet. So when I bring up "oh I found" it's because I am still randomly finding stuff tucked away. Lots of lighting stuff, but it's large and thus unwieldy for a solo-shooter run and gun situation. for my talking head stuff, it'll be perfect, but its bigger than my entire camera kit. I also found a DJI Ronin RSC2 in this pile! One of my late-stage purchases that never got used. Dilemma is to sell it and profit (buy lenses) or find a use for it. Its very small and can fly my XT4 w cage and zoom lens without issue. Wish id find some low-light lenses or camera monitors in this pile!!

Intensely helpful. Cant thank you enough for this guidance. Had a free night last week while my girlfriend was out of town to test everything, plus it was a clear night! So I was able to be much more realistic in running through settings and talking. It takes a few runs, but actually talking to the camera as if it was a colleague interested in my hobbies. I need to work on diluting some of the more scientific terms down to a more digestible format. Explaining what a "calibration dataset" is is easy for me to explain to a fellow geek, but explaining it to a larger diverse audience will be a disaster. I'll lose them right there, no doubt. Hell, sometimes explaining it to myself I get twisted. Second. In doing this dry run (dry as in I have no real astronomical data to collect currently so I pretended ) 1. I walk around, ALOT when doing the scope work. The shotgun mic was good, but clearly had some drawbacks with me moving around. Something like a Wireless ME from Rode might be good just to clip it on and walk around the area without worrying on audio coverage. Cheap too, my work sells them so I can get a major break on cost. 2. I tripped on my giant ass tripod 54 times. I almost threw it to the Sun!! Something I noticed during load-in, the camera tripod was the same size as my tracking mount tripod... which carries a 100lb sub-arc second accurate device... I dont need something equally large for a 4lb Fuji rig. I LOVED my monopod, but didnt trust it on its own un-attended. Travel video tripod here I come. 3. Low Light. This is major issue #1. I tossed about half of the footage because it was beyond what I would be comfortable releasing. Too dark, and when I pushed it, it was a bit gross looking. Something T1.2 or 1.4 I believe is needed here, along with a small LED battery powered fill light. Good music buddy has a couple PavoTubes and I borrowed one from him today for a test tonight. It can't just be the lens, I need more light too. 4. Major Issue #2. With the audio plug and USB power inserted, the floppy screen on the XT4 is useless. My vision isn't perfect either. The 1/8th and USB plug directly covers the audio meter, AF settings, and nearly half the frame. I owned, and sold, a Shinobi a couple years ago and I really am remembering why I bought it in the first place!! Thankfully, this time around I need something much less fancy. I need to confirm framing, audio level and a DC pass through would be super neat. Daytime performance isn't super critical, as I will be using this at night. 5. Power. It would be super neat to power both my monitor and camera off of the same battery on the monitor. Is that a wise idea? I see a ton of monitors with DC outs, and they do make W235 Dummy batteries.. might be a convenient solution