MrSMW

Because as the saying goes, you can't make a silk purse out of a sows ear. Personally, I want: The highest quality starting point +/vs the least compromise (but there will be compromise) Photo and video. It's just a no-brainer for me. I'm playing with some stuff right now, photo and video, ahead of this year's season. Photography-wise, it's really just some fairly minimal tweaks but with video, I'm really trying to explore shifting from SOOC profile to shooting log. At least for anything 4000 iso or under, otherwise I'm sticking with my profile. The aesthetic, as Tim just mentioned, is whatever we want it to be.

Patience Grasshopper. YouTube videos and reviews with links to affiliated sellers will be coming out soon. Quote: someonefuckedmybrain for 10% off your first purchase.

Define. Rhetorical question. I am sure the GH6 would tick every box for me as a video tool for my needs as the GH5 already does and the same goes for my S5 and S1H, other than the above question. It will be interesting to see if ‘improved AF tracking’ = a switch to PDAF, or whether it’s just another tweak to the DFD system. I really don’t care what it is or how it works, just that it does. Having said that, I’m more interested to see what they do with the GH6 AF because that might reveal where they will probably then be going with the next gen S1 line…

Tell that to the French 🤔 To be fair, I haven't made as much effort with the language as I might, but I have many excuses... 🤥

The only flash I use is Godox AD200 off camera. I don't use on camera myself and haven't in at least 7 if not 8 years, but OCF, at dusk or after dark yes. Mostly outdoors, but not always, lighting up folks speaking during wedding speeches etc. Direct if outdoors or bounced if indoors. Great bit of kit and all I need. I went off flash a bit the more I did video, but I'm bringing it back quite a bit for '22.

Does anyone know what SD cards Villeneuve used to shoot Dune on?

Someone, somewhere, will be asking the question, "what SD cards did they shoot Dune on?"

Which reminds me that I received an email the other day from a company offering to actually do negative stuff on-line and on social media in regard to competitors. Beyond words. I have done a small amount of 'industrial espionage' in the past regarding a couple of competitors re. pricing (as is done to me quite regularly, some of which I can spot, most of it not) but actually takes steps to actively attack someone? I'll see if I can dig it out...

I think so also... I don't think people outside of the industry have much say in regard to the aesthetic and nor do they/we have much say over the content other than voting with our feet and wallets in regard to the latter. Plus our all important keyboards of course. I just watched Dune this weekend and was blown away by the aesthetic. Best movie ever? Well that one is debatable and in regard to the aesthetic, is it all 100% real? Of course not, but that combination of real + manipulated, the lighting both at the time of capture and fiddled with in post, the tonality of each scene etc... Shot on digital, transferred to film and then scanned back to digital in order (in their words) to combine the best of both for some kind of crossover look. It appealed to my aesthetic anyway!

Both my father and mother-in-law. To a T. I block my father on social. My wife blocks her mother. They are like out of control rabid kids. With tourettes. Actually what @kye has mentioned about workplace issues, I have experienced twice. Not actual bullying (good luck with that, - I don't wish to sound macho or anything, but just good luck with that with me...) but behind the scenes manipulation of other folks over a prolonged period of time. Both cases, photographers hiding behind on-line personas (in one of the cases, pretending to be a bride...which he wan't), over a period of time and with butter that would not melt in their mouth, slowly beavering away at under-mining the foundations. And for a while, they made progress but then their behaviour came to light. Or rather the incidences did and then after investigation, the culprits were brought to the surface. They were dealt with publicly. No fuss, no drama, no shit-talk, - the facts simply presented. Neither are still in business. Speaking generally, it is what it is though, - part the 'fault' of the existence of the internet and partly the steady erosion of society. Actually, I think the two go hand in hand and whilst neither is responsible for the other, they both add fuel to each others fires.

Well that's pretty poor. I don't use Facebook (other than occasionally Marketplace or something specific by a friend or family that I have been alerted to) but had to de-friend my own father a couple of years ago as he was such an internet troll/keyboard warrior. I have zero time for this kind of shit.

Meet in the middle and agree on 'somewhere around 3/10' 😜

Hello 🤗 That’s my tribe. I shoot specifically for SOOC results for a couple of reasons: A: If it looks right, it is right and even though I only shoot for paying clients, my first and only priority is myself in regard to the aesthetic. Arrogant? Far from it… In 10+ years no one has ever questioned my grade and those that choose to book me do so because they like what I produce. B: Time in post. The grading side of one of my typical 10 minute productions is about an hour or less. C. The simple fact that I have never been able to get a better looking end result using log. At least not consistently. Every year I think that maybe I should try log again and run back to back tests and every time I do, it’s the same result and the SOOC wins. SOOC of course is not any cameras default setting but the deliberate choice of: profile tweaks + lens choice + filter choice + as much as I am able to, lighting and direction of light. In regard to the latter, maybe I’m just shit at grading…🤪

Indeed. For anyone that doesn’t need AF, purchasing ‘vintage’ lenses can be a near zero cost…or even make a profit over time approach. I need AF at least some of the time and being something of a minimalist, don’t wish to carry more lenses than I need so anything non-AF doesn’t work for me, but that’s just my use case scenario. Plenty if used AF lenses at decent prices, native or adapted. Just don’t try adapting to Panasonic and expect anything more than 1/10 AF 🤪

What both of the above said. Otherwise, if what you currently have is not working for you and cannot work for you, bite the bullet, take the hit and offload it to someone like MBP if UK/EU or KEH if US. But nothing is ‘future proof’ when buying current tech. Leica or Hasselblad probably hold their value best for no other reason than their heritage, but as for the rest… The single best way to minimise the cost though is buy used. I try and buy as much as I can used these days… A colleague of mine bought a brand new Panny S1R a couple of years back at full retail price of around 3500 euros, plus 2 genuine batteries. Barely used it in those 2 years and sold the lot to me for 1500 euros. The S1R is still I believe one of very few cameras that has a score of 100 on DXO. Used ‘like new’ S1H for 2250 euros last year. Find me a combo like that for under 3750 euros! Now I am not saying that the S1R or S1H is the camera for you, but simply highlighting that there are many stupidly good options out there if you don’t buy used. But as above, what do you need it to do and any preferences over 4/3, APSC, FF etc?

I use social media (IG) for business only otherwise the greater portion of it is toxic in my opinion. So much misinformation and soapbox ranting… I keep it to an absolute minimum as I do YouTube comments. The single biggest problem as I see it is the complete anonymity of the most toxic. It empowers them in their cancerous commentary.

Playing devils advocate for a moment, punching in? But not if the subject has less than perfect skin!

It has IBIS, so I imagine very few would even try, hence why using a Google search, you probably wouldn't turn up much, if anything.

Possibly the 'not every shot' is in regard to the final part where the camera is static on a tripod? Otherwise, quite impressive actually if that's OIS only. Based on that, it would certainly be good enough for my needs. I wouldn't walk with it, but hand held 'static' footage and maybe some very gentle push in/pull out... Maybe it could be an S1H with a larger sensor...

6k and even 4k are also pretty valid. The only real negative though is shutter speed. I've tried it with pretty decent results, - extracting 4k stills from 4k footage, but if you are shooting say 25p and 50fps and there's a lot of movement in the subject, well you don't notice it in video because...well because it's video, - it's supposed to be moving. But with stills, unless we deliberately want to convey movement with some motion blur, 1/50th of a second capture equivalent isn't always enough. Boundaries are continually blurring however and I reckon I could get away with producing an entire set of results from a wedding today using 4k grabs and not a single client would notice. I would know however (obviously doh!) because first, all 'pics' would be in the landscape format unless heavily cropped into portrait from the landscape orientated footage (square capture could be the answer!), but 'know' because an equivalent sensor camera capturing raw stills is always going to produce a better end result than a screen grab. There is an answer to this however and that is instead of using an ND, just shoot higher speed video in the first place, ie, compromise the video very very slightly in order to facilitate better screen grabs. It works, - I've tried it, but just don't have the balls to go over to it fully. Maybe if I was shooting 8k or even 6k, I might...

I don't think it was ever a test, other than for walking around vlogging! The only really valid tests are the one's that are at least close to your own intended use. It's pure entertainment. If you like his particular form of entertainment... His 'process' (because there is a semi-serious side to it), is in finding the perfect vlogging camera for his needs...which is in order to create content for his channels, so by it's nature, will be never ending. It's become a self-perpetuating thing now. But as a serious educator? He's about as far from being one as most YouTubers are, but having 10's of thousands of followers does make you some kind of guru these days, even if that info is often conflicted. Or just wrong! It's amusing in small doses, sometimes, but as you say, gets a bit tedious after a while. As with most things, you can always take away a positive and in these types of cases, it's often NOT how to do something. And that in itself is a positive takeaway! Who is imparting the information is as important as the information itself.

Great, I love old movies and indeed, at first I thought it was some ‘lost’ film from the 1940’s!

I know, I am kind of in shock myself 🤪 As I said though, only for very specific times of the day otherwise it will remain locked as part of the tripod. And only because the weight and size (vs the output) is at an all time low for a full frame 6k camera. Not that I shoot 6k. We’ll see how it goes, but even if I only use it once at every wedding this year, the cost without any resale of the tool at the end of the year, will be 10 euros per wedding. I reckon it will produce maybe an average 20 sequences/clips I might use on any job that I could not have otherwise have achieved, so…. There’s still a large part of my senses that says it’s still an extra faff though… 😜

Education by ‘content creators’ and ‘bedroom based businesses’ is the new norm. To be fair, some are quite good. Most, as we know are just copycats and doing it badly. It’s the world we live in and as I always say, you either have to tread through the trash to reach the treasure, or just block the entire thing.

Well I am 100% in the L Mount system now with; 3 bodies (S1R, S1H, S5) and 6 lenses (2 Panny, 4 Sigma) and ideally, I'd like to stay with them for as long as the system works for me. Which it currently does ticking more boxes for me than anything else currently out there. For the duration of 2022 at least, I won't make a single change to the line up. I've built it up from the S5 in Oct 2020, through the other 2 bodies and most of the lenses last year and added the final lens this year. It's only weakness (for my needs) is the less than reliable tracking AF. As to 'wants', - I'd ideally like identical bodies and if I could get those somewhere realistically bigger/heavier than the S5, but slightly smaller/lighter than the S1H, that would be great, ie, take all 3 camera that I have and make them have a menage et trois lovechild. That may happen with a Panny S2H, but at this point in time, that is just a wish/fantasy. Anything FP flavoured, whether used for filming or stills could potentially fit in somewhere to my line up as all the glass works. If Sigma do make a 3rd generation FP however, that could be another alternative option but they would need to: 1: Have a level of non-mechanical shutter equivalent to the new Nikon Z9, arguably the first camera that has made e:shutter work properly. 2: Have IBIS because for my needs, only 1 of my 6 lenses has OIS and I need good handheld stability. Is the FP body too small however? The Olympus EPL10 has it and so does the Sony A6600. In regard to the former, it's actually slightly smaller and lighter...but maybe doesn't have the heat management of the FP... 3: Ideally, I'd like a tilt screen but it's not a dealbreaker as an aftermarket option does exist. 4: It would have to be compelling enough to beat out any S2H for my needs. When I tested the L model, I loved it's form factor and with a small grip, it would be fabulous. Loved the files. Maybe a little larger than I'd ideally like (around 40-50mp would be my ideal) but didn't test the video capability because it had already failed on the stills side of things due to banding under artificial light and with weddings where I have little to no control over that kind of thing. Bought a used S1R instead. So I really really hope Sigma do not abandon the FP line now, but expect they are more likely to than continue because sales must be pretty low (?) and they instead simply concentrate on their increasingly popular lenses.