newfoundmass

Exactly what I said (-still) when I saw our first test with the GH2/Lomo in the streets of Lyon with Alice, our lovely and sharp First AD:
And the final trailer was representative of the film:
Again, THANKS TO ANDREW and everyone in the EOSHD community who inspired us to take the leap with the GH2/Lomo... and supported us as we tried out Driftwood hacks... and finished the film!!

While true, it's been a tough time for all of us. I deal with depression, I have my whole life, but the last couple years, especially with the pandemic, has been brutal. I think most of us, to some extent, are feeling beaten down and exhausted. My enthusiasm and creativity certainly has taken a hit. So don't feel like you're the only one. I have faith you'll get your mojo back. 

Yep, it's not EOSHD that's the problem it's me! I need to get my enthusiasm back. It's been a tough time.
Thanks for the comments guys, it is helping me figure things out a lot.

In a perfect world you'd find your passion again and create the content that brought us all here in the first place. Unfortunately this isn't a perfect world, and you can't just make yourself want to do something like that, it needs to come from the heart. 
Ultimately you should do what's best for you. You don't owe us anything. The only person you need to worry about is you and what will make you happier. 
I hope that it can all work out for you, Andrew and thank you for everything! 

Just looked now, joined here July 26, 2013. First comment, in your post about the first rumours about the GX7 (which I bought when launched). But probably was just a reader for a long time before - got my GH2 (still have it) after knowing about it and the hacks here. Still have your GH2 shooters guide, bought my first manual lenses because of it (even my concave FD 35mm f/2, which ended as a very good investment...).

It's been a long and pleasant ride. Already told you that EOSHD is almost single handed responsible for my video / stills passion (and this become a personal gap filling staple in my life, bringing me kind of a MEANING to life that I've always missed). I've read EOSHD almost every day since I've discovered it - and considering that the other filmmaking site that I've discovered about the same time is turning into a conspiracy theory site, this daily visit is even more valuable to me.

I'm no professional, I work in IT, stills and video are just a passion. It is hard to gave advice when filmmaking is not my living income, and even more that I don't have a website that is my main income (which is obviously your concern beside the passion). But I will try.

COVID put a lot of stress in everyone - here too. Will not digress to much about me - I was kind of privileged to work from home since March of last year, no income reduce, no cases in the family. But my state of mind is in a all-time low too, 3 cats died in one year (2 of them with me in 15+ years, was really a part of my life that gone), haven't touched my cameras in almost 2 months (too much work, a 3 year old daughter, and having to move to another house for the 2nd time in 12 months), and living in a insane country with a genocide president. Much less problems than most of the people here, but stressing.
 
And in the past year, I saw a lot of photo / video sites and channels having being affercted by this general felling and / or the state of the photo/video "ecospace" state. Ming Thein got fed up, stopped his (amazing) blog and go full time to be a watch maker. Kirk Tuck had a very similar post than yours some days ago. Even Gerald Undone looks like fed up by making the same videos all over again, in his last post (of course it could be just marketing - being a skeptic is almost a constant state on these days). I think that there are some causes to it.

Gear is becoming unexciting, compared to past years. From the 1080p24 of the 5D MK II to (now the beginning) of the 8k cameras, it was a rocketing climb in the quality and availabiliy of the filming tools. Not only in resolution, but in codecs, colors, AF, IBIS, things that we can only dream about in the GH2 days. But there is not so much to grow - 8k, 10-bit everywhere, better AF, more RAW formats and probably global shutters. But the jump in final quality would be nowhere near of we got in the past years. The cameras releasing pace already become much slower, and the prices are rising.

Ming Thein had a good concept of "point of sufficiency" - that most of modern cameras are already too good for most of the people; that changing to a better camera don't make their output better. And I think that people are already starting to realize that - buying a newer camera, spending tons of money and seeing that the results are not improving in the same magnitude.
I started to see more and more channels talking about techniques and primary filmmaking concepts - even with smartphones. Framing, focusing, grading. Most catering to (probably) the most growing market in flmmaking - youtubers, low budget music filmmakers, amateurs. 

I can speak from my point of view of an enthusiast - and by no means I want to sound detrimental to the bunch of pros here, a lot of them that I like and learn A LOT from. But I miss the amateur side of EOSHD, the less cutting edge equipment side of it.

Just open you GH2 guide, as I have it now here. Look how much info there was NOT camera related. This is what is valuable now. I have a friend that become a good an very booked photographer - and, since this is the market now, he needed to improve the video side of his business, for clients and for his personal channels. He started to do some Stories videos with simple tips on how to make moblie photos better - VERY simple tips, and extra light (that could be only a flashlight), posing, very simple tips. His audience exploded.

And on the other side, he NEVER asked me any gear related tips. He is a Canon shooter, loved the R5 and the R3, but have no plans to buy one. For his work, it's 5D MK III and his iPhone have more than enough quality (and even for some simple videos for his clients). But he DEVOURS filming technique sites - lighting, composition, grading, editing. And it works - he started making videos about 5 months ago, and the quality jumped massively, using the same gear.

Since I started to offload my m4/3 gear, I entered in some trading forums, and seeing some of the work of the buyers. In m4/3 forums, the rage are not the GH5 of Blackmagics. Are the G7 (yes) and, mostly, the GX85. And lots of people are doing music videos (specially funk, rap and country ones) with very good quality with these tools - not the most cinematic ones, not good for my tastes, but in a look that their audiences like. I sold my GX85 for a gospel rapper, and he is all in into grading in Cinelike-D, cheap vintage lenses and framing - his budget is near to none.

All these people could not buy an R3, Canon Cxxx, or a Red. They are not interested in gear review - they already have the ones that they could afford, or what they could afford was already reviewed to death in the past. They starve for information in HOW to shoot, not in WHAT to shoot.

Of course I'm in a 3rd world country, and this is the scenario here. But (I guess) that in US or in the EU kind of happened the same. The people that were here since the beginning evolved to pro filmmaking, have the best or best-ish tools, and already have a very good knowledge of gear. Here still is one of the few places that pros discuss pro specs instead of fighting - and this is a valuable thing that must happen.

But it is not anymore a place that a newbie would come to find useful info for a newbie. And I guess that it made EOSHD missing renovation.

You and all these amazing guys here have a lot to TEACH. Keep talking about the latest gear - new people learn a lot about it too. But this is a thing that mostly stills / video youtube is doing - with a lot of corporate backing.

But teaching how to use these tools - these guys are not doing it. How to compose. How to focus, how to grade, how to edit. How past hardware could bring amazing results. How to make good filmmaking without cutting edge gear. Revisitng the GH3, GH4, GX85, older Blackmagics, 5D mk ii AND iii, lower Fujis, the Olympuses. And older, and newer manual lenses. 

EOSHD, in the older days, catered to newbies, enthusiasts, and mobile pros - simply because the tools that all these could use were the same - GH1, GH2, OG BMPCC, 5D MK II and III, E-M5 MK I. The market changed, mobile pros and whealthy enthusiasts have the current top gear (FF mirrorless and top APS-C gear). But newer filmakers, amateurs and enthusiasts were getting older and cheaper gear, and it is sufficient to them (my main camera now is the X-S10, and is more than enough for me and my skills). 

This new public need to know about lenses, techniques, grading. They need what you have in the GH2 guide.

And maybe with this public, you will focus less in tech - and more in technique. In how to extract the best result with less, having more constraints. And maybe you find your joy again.

Do not do the same that all other sites do. With this, you could get a new public. Better yet, you will not bother with what the Northrup-ish sites are doing, or if they are being paid to do, which will be good to your mental health. Forget them.

Your "Tokio Storm" (https://vimeo.com/31835141) was probably one of the most mind-blowing pieces of my life. I WANTED to do that. And I still want - holy shit, it still looks AMAZING after all these years.

This was you, this was EOSHD. And I miss that.

Sorry for the long post - and yes, all this could be bullshit, and just my personal point of view, and not valid in the grand scheme of things at all. At last, just wanted to point how EOSHD is important to me, as a person. And how you was, and is, important.

Just wishing that you find that what is best for you. Take care of your mental health. Find the best way for you. 

And thanks. A very big thanks. That will not be big enough, never.
 
 

🤣 People say this every time Canon releases a new camera and it never happens. 

🤣 People say this every time Canon releases a new camera and it never happens. 

I want to be a troll for a moment and comment RIP Sony, but I resist. 

I say it because it will be. I'm not the person Panasonic needs to win over, it's the people who've written them off or have left because of the auto focus. I've been saying for years on here that it's not that bad and that it's not really a problem for me. What is a problem for me is a company ignoring what the majority of the market wants, which puts the system and company at risk. Little old me, the guy heavily invested in M43, isn't going to be responsible for Panasonic or the system dying because I point out of EOSHD the obvious, it's the poor marketing that will do that. 

Anecdotal evidence indicates that the auto focus has been the deciding factor for many people on YouTube to switch from Panasonic to other systems. At this point I think Fuji is as popular, if not more popular, than Panasonic is with that market. 
As someone that's heavily invested in Panasonic and the M43 system, auto focus is a big thing for me not because I need it (the cameras I have meet my needs) but because I'm interested in the long term health of the system. A move towards AF that is on par with the competition gives me more confidence in the viability of the system and company long term. Knowing the system I'm in has a future is important to me and my business decisions. I realize that there are people who think that's crazy, I don't really care to argue over it. 

Exactly what ^he^ said, except I do use AF.
Not all the time but probably about 50:50 on a typical wedding day.
It’s the viability of Panasonic’s camera division that concerns me.
Especially as I came from Fuji who have some very interesting stuff available in the next few weeks and ‘probably’ coming next year…
Ie, I think their future does stand or fall very much based on what they do in regard to AF simply because the sheer volume of negativity surrounding the AF is overwhelming the rest which is arguably the best kit going at these price points.

Anecdotal evidence indicates that the auto focus has been the deciding factor for many people on YouTube to switch from Panasonic to other systems. At this point I think Fuji is as popular, if not more popular, than Panasonic is with that market. 
As someone that's heavily invested in Panasonic and the M43 system, auto focus is a big thing for me not because I need it (the cameras I have meet my needs) but because I'm interested in the long term health of the system. A move towards AF that is on par with the competition gives me more confidence in the viability of the system and company long term. Knowing the system I'm in has a future is important to me and my business decisions. I realize that there are people who think that's crazy, I don't really care to argue over it. 

Anecdotal evidence indicates that the auto focus has been the deciding factor for many people on YouTube to switch from Panasonic to other systems. At this point I think Fuji is as popular, if not more popular, than Panasonic is with that market. 
As someone that's heavily invested in Panasonic and the M43 system, auto focus is a big thing for me not because I need it (the cameras I have meet my needs) but because I'm interested in the long term health of the system. A move towards AF that is on par with the competition gives me more confidence in the viability of the system and company long term. Knowing the system I'm in has a future is important to me and my business decisions. I realize that there are people who think that's crazy, I don't really care to argue over it. 

Agreed. I'm cautiously optimistic that they've decided to go with something more than Dfd, but I am not going to get my hopes up too high. I really, really want to stay with Panasonic but we'll see. The next six months will be very interesting. 

Hybrid AF could mean many things.
Perhaps with faster scanning speeds and readouts from newer sensors DfD is finally able to achieve performance like PDAF. The inherent weakness of DfD is it having to pulse focus to achieve focus. This side effect is clearly hard to hide and ugly and undesirable.
I just don't think they will get over the stigma of DfD without getting rid of the pulsing (which becomes more apparent with wider and wider apertures) and then rebranding their autofocus technology. Anything branded as DfD Version 3 has already failed in its naming alone. Overcoming the interia of years of "contrast based AF is inferior to Phase Detect AF" in almost every camera review featuring a Panasonic camera will be hard without PDAF or a massive performance improvement and a rebranding of the technology—at least in the mirrorless market dominated by Sony A7 and Canon R series cameras.

Please keep this conspiracy nonsense to yourself. 

Please keep this conspiracy nonsense to yourself. 

Please keep this conspiracy nonsense to yourself. 

With the resolution/framerate and amount of motion involved with those devices, they are in need of a codec/bitrate overhaul, or you always end up with heavily compressed blotchy mess that can't hold up in post.

Please keep this conspiracy nonsense to yourself. 

Please keep this conspiracy nonsense to yourself. 

Please keep this conspiracy nonsense to yourself. 

Oh ok. Thanks to China (Fauci, Bill Gates, etc too?), Covid has slowed down the world, and ensured most peoples lives are seriously disrupted. Also, the super shady behaviour of the UN (Tedros) and others is extremely strange.  
 
 
I feel the Panasonic autofocus part can be explained in 3 parts.
'Of course, we have received various opinions from our customers, and we recognize that image-plane phase-detection AF is superior in terms of subject tracking. On the other hand, as represented by deep learning, we are improving AF performance by strengthening algorithms that utilize the video signal processing technology which we are good at.
We are currently developing the next-generation system with the aim of making it even more practical, so please wait until the day we can provide it.'
1. "we have received various opinions from our customers, and we recognize that image-plane phase-detection AF is superior".
This means Panasonic know how urgently customers have been asking for AG to be improved (which for many, may be the sole thing lacking in Panasonic cameras).
2. "... as represented by deep learning, we are improving AF performance by strengthening algorithms that utilize the video signal processing technology which we are good at."
Which is corporate gibberish at its finest.
3. "We are currently developing the next-generation system with the aim of making it even more practical.."
Either they're reinventing the wheel or giving us some unbelievable story regarding DfD, which is quite unreliable, and needs to be phased out on new cameras.
If they don't fix the AF, it may be aufweidersehen for Panasonic. Which would be sad, because Panasonic seems to have gotten most other things right. And the failure of the G7, G9, G95 and others as Student Indie Cameras may mostly be due to bad marketing. 

@newfoundmass USB audio is an existing standard which, if implemented in cameras, would let people use USB mics, but more importantly they could use mixers and completely bypass camera preamps and ADCs. And it would open up to a whole range of audio devices, like MixPre's, Zooms, or even desktop mixers from Behringer, Tascam, FocusRite, etc. That would streamline a lot of types of shoots.

@newfoundmass nailed it.....I would never want a USB mic over an XLR mic. Yes XLR is ancient, and large, and unwieldy; but the entire audio world ecosystem is built around it. If camera makers started going off on their own with USB audio they would make it a nightmare to tap into the 20+ years worth of XLR interfaces out there. 
For the work that I do I have to connect to DJ mixers, PA systems, wireless mics, wired mics, karaoke subs, etc. etc. The standard interface on nearly all of them is either XLR, 2.5mm, 3.5mm, or 6.35mm jacks...not a single USB interface amongst them. Additionally, XLR was designed from the ground up to be low noise and high quality; I can't say the same for USB.