eatstoomuchjam

5 hours ago, kye said:

The main candidate would be a 50mm F1.4 to be a 64mm F1.8 equivalent lens for shooting "night cinema".  This would be to replace my M42 Takumar 50mm F1.4 + SB combo (which is very vintage and has distracting bokeh and isn't great on the sides) and the 42.5mm F0.95 + Sirui 1.25x combo (which is heavy and also isn't great on the sides).

If so, I'd strongly consider the 50/1.2L or the Sigma 50/1.4 Art.  The Sigmas are, generally speaking, too clinical for me, but lots of people like them - it really depends on how clean you wanna go.  The 50/1.2L has been around for a long time now.  I got mine pretty close to when they released it - it might be old enough to vote, at this point.  That's to say that it's been out long enough that you could probably find a copy with clean glass and some external dings for not too much money.  Bokeh is completely a matter of taste thing, but I hated the bokeh on the EF 50/1.4.  I remember it was ugly/busy enough that even non-photographers noticed it on some photos.  Maybe I just had a bad copy?  I liked the EF 50/1.8 more, even.

There's also Otus, of course, but used prices on them have stayed surprisingly high.  I think there was also a Zeiss ZE 50/1.4 which is probably more affordable.  I never tried it.  It's probably very good.

4 hours ago, kye said:

I could even sacrifice a small amount of aperture and go with the Sigma 50-100mm F1.8 zoom (equivalent to a 64-128mm F2.3), which would have all the benefits of a zoom.  It's a pity there isn't a mid-range offering in that series so I could go both wider and longer than the 50mm mark.

If considering the Sigma f/1.8 zooms, you might want to double-check how the coverage is with the 0.64x SB.  I remember the 18-35 had a pretty small image circle - the 50-100 is probably a bit better, being more telephoto.

7 hours ago, kye said:

What's the deal with speed boosting to EF?  
Is the Ultra 0.64x worth it over the normal 0.71x adapter? (they seem to be similarly priced used).
Is there a different one I should consider (other than Metabones)?

The difference is not huge.  When wide open on very fast lenses, you're more likely to see some speed booster artifacts with the 0.64x.  Whether those artifacts are acceptable is personal taste.  If the prices weren't similar, I'd just take the cheaper one.

I was also surprised to find that the 0.64x covers the slightly small S35 sensor in my Z Cam E2-S6G.

Anyway, as far as other brands, I think that Kipon's focal reducers are well-regarded.  Otherwise, most of the third-party ones are skippable/don't seem to be too good.

7 hours ago, kye said:

Essentially I'd be getting it to shoot shallow DOF (like I do with my M42 Takumar 50mm F1.4, etc) but with more modern / cleaner results as M42 lenses are quite vintage and far dirtier than fast EF glass, especially when shooting wide open.  AF is of little importance to me, so I'd be expecting manual focus.

FWIW, you can also have your cake and eat it with a focal reducer, if you want.  Pentax K, Nikon F, Leica R, Olympus OM, and M42 lenses (including your Takumar) can all be adapted to EF mount.  I've also thought about building a recessed M39 adapter since it would be theoretically possible on any camera without a mirror assembly (M39 is 28.8mm and EF is 44mm, but I have several M39 lenses with controls near the front and that are skinny enough that they could just sit further back in the EF mount).

Anyway, for EF lenses otherwise, do you know which you're considering? 

1 hour ago, Andrew - EOSHD said:

I have used Luma Fusion, a touch screen tablet / phone app - I don't know about you but I hate NLEs on a phone, you just don't have enough screen real-estate.

I've used Luma Fusion on iPad.  I edited some vlogs with it a while back before deciding I didn't like editing on the iPad, but the editor itself worked fine and was really simple/straightforward.  They released a MacOS version a while back.  I haven't tried it, but I'd guess it's also pretty simple/easy.

1 hour ago, Andrew - EOSHD said:

is the '3d lut editor' this one https://3dlutcreator.com

Yes.  🤦‍♂️. I meant to type "3D lut creator."  And yeah, it's a little expensive, but it's a lot of features to implement/compete with, especially if you want editing as well.  How many hours of your time would you want to burn for $39/seat?

1 hour ago, Andrew - EOSHD said:

speeds up your workflow for 99% of edits.

Unless it's making editing decisions for me, a simpler editor wouldn't fix the thing that costs me the most time in Resolve.  The other things which end up costing me time are things that I should just figure out the hotkey for at some point (like "shift everything on timeline after this point back enough to add this clip").  I take it that the cut page in Resolve is also too bloated for you?  I think it's specifically intended for faster turnaround stuff like you describe.  I've paid it almost no attention beyond that.

21 minutes ago, Andrew - EOSHD said:

What if you want to crop as well? Quick Actions are too limited. Photoshop is too bloated. The in between solutions are all a bit weak.

The MacOS preview tool allows cropping and resizing.  I use it all the time.

Indeed, though "Ursa Cine LF" would be a totally fine name.  There's just no need to say "12K" on there.  For the other?  "Ursa Cine 65" since the 65mm sensor is going to be a whole lot more exciting to most people than telling them it has a 17k sensor that they will mostly use in 8K or 4K mode.  Just about the only competition on the market, the rental-only Alexa 65, is a 6.5k camera.

That is, of course, unless you're selling something to be used for projecting on The Sphere in Vegas.  Then I guess there's a single camera that's competing - like literally just one body, as far as I know - that 18K thing with the 75x75mm or so sensor.

I've been a bit tempted a few times now to try to rig up something with a medium format ground glass or a 4x5 GG, similar to an old DOF adapter for camcorders.  I remember Gale had the Forbes70 which worked that way and there have been some 8x10 projects to do the same, like the FZero from Salazar and the one that Media Division put together.  I should probably just go through my pile of project cameras to see if I have a pretty clean GG around and just do it...

I'm not sure what "a modern approach" is, but iMovie and Luma Fusion are both pretty straightforward and unbloated from what I remember - and they both run on Mac.  I'm not sure if either one has a lut editor, but 3d lut editor has been pretty good for a while now, hasn't it?

2 hours ago, Andrew - EOSHD said:

Which 17K displays will HBO customers be watching this on?

I really wish BMD would stop putting the maximum resolution in the product name!  I make these jokes too about my own UC 12K ("finally, something for you to play on your 12K TV!), but in reality, it's just a really nice 8K/4K camera which has a bonus 12K mode for...  mostly VFX shots.  😅

3 hours ago, kye said:

One thing that comes to mind for the vlogger crowd is having a small manual focus that goes between two useful focal distances, like vlogging distance and normal infinity focus.  This is how the Olympus 15mm F8 MFT pancake lens works, and it's surprisingly functional.  

Sure, slow zone focusing lenses are definitely a possibility.  I used that exact lens for part of my YouTube review of the Z Cam E2c if I remember right, pushing the compact-ness of the body/setup.  It's a potato, but it's alright in the context of "it's a body cap you can use to make photos."

You could also go the route of MS Optics-style designs.  I have their 21/4.5 triplet and there are most definitely compromises to get it as small as it is, but it's also a really fun lens with better quality than the Olympus cap (and full frame-ish coverage).  A design like that one or their 24/4, but stopped down to f/8 could be interesting.

4 hours ago, kye said:

Looking at those GoPro sample shots, both the shallow DOF shots are relatively macro, so that doesn't need a large sensor or super-fast lens, but the moon shot might actually be the more difficult one requiring both a long focal length and also a larger aperture to get enough light.  I don't really do astro-photography but the moon is approaching higher-ISOs I would imagine.

Indeed - and I don't think they've said that the images are SOOC.  It's hard to know how much editing was done with the moon shot.  It's also not out of the question that an auxiliary lens was used to make it more telephoto.  This is the importance of waiting until devices are in the hand of real consumers before getting too hyped.  There aren't many things that I'll preorder and the number gets smaller every year, getting replaced by the number of things that I'll wait are available used for at least a 20-30% discount.  X-M5 for $900?  Shrug.  X-M5 for $824-874 on mpb?  Get bent, mpb.  X-M5 for $781 on adorama?  Starting to move in the right direction...   

4 hours ago, kye said:

Seriously though, there are probably 5-year-old android phones that could replicate both those images, so I'd suggest that most of what we're seeing is the hype and that GoPro shares the same definition of cinema that most YouTubers do.

Yes.  And the close-up stuff could, theoretically, be done with some of the nicer existing action cameras with a diopter.

1 hour ago, kye said:

All true, but the sample images from the promo video all have shallow DOF, so that means another kettle of fish entirely with AF and/or focus guides (peaking etc).

Oh yeah, they absolutely do.  And as the article you linked said, they look like optical shallow DOF instead of simulated!

Another possibility is that they release two versions, one with a small sensor for the traditional action sports use case - and one with a bigger sensor for the vlogger crowd.   If they DID release something like the Z Cam E1, but with a modern SOC supporting 10-bit, a flat profile, and a decent H.265 implementation, I'd be excited for a GoPro for the first time in years.

If the sensor is getting that big, focus is going to be a problem.  On 1" sensor action cameras with a fixed focus range, there's already a problem where manufacturers need to choose whether to optimize for the 2-4' range when someone is filming themselves or the 8'+ range matching traditional action camera usage.  I think they all optimize for the longer range and sell you a diopter if you want to self-film.  Users don't seem to love using diopters.

So if they're bigger than MFT, they're going to need autofocus or a whole series of lenses with preset focus distance and (probably) slow apertures to keep DOF usable.  Autofocus is problematic for a camera that has associated itself with action sports.  The mechanism would need to be able to take a pretty gnarly crash at speed, but also even if the AF is great, people are accustomed to deep DOF from them - will they be unhappy when their footage of their buddy doing some crazy move is trashed because the camera decided to focus, instead, on a passer-by?

Preset focus distance lenses are less of a concern for reliability since they're pretty similar to the diopters currently used, but they do have the problem that the user needs to start recording with a pretty good idea of their focal distance and they also need, necessarily, to be pretty slow lenses so that the user will stay in focus while moving/talking at a distance of 2-4'.

If I were GoPro, I'd be way more likely to follow the approach of phones - use a second sensor to build a depth map and allow setting focus in post.

That said, a camera that small with such a big sensor and, ideally, swappable lenses, would be a dream for me.  😅

11 hours ago, fuzzynormal said:

Has it been a good investment?  You making money with it?

I'm making films with it.  I was recently offered enough for an upcoming feature that it would more than pay for the camera, but it would have also been like half their budget.  I suggested a percentage instead - which will almost certainly yield less money, but allow that money to be spent to improve the parts of the film which are more important than my camera, which is most of them.  😅

4 hours ago, Aussie Ash said:

Thanks for the offer-I'd love to see some footage from your 12K LF please !  Doesn't have to be with Helios i also have several versions & having them auto focus is not far off ! Also which of these two cameras are you happiest with and why.

Just footage in general?  The most recent couple of shorts on my YouTube channel (https://youtube.com/eatstoomuchjam) were with the UC12K.  Otherwise, most of what I've shot is in short films that are still in festival rotation.

Between the UC12K and the GFX 100 II, I'm happy enough with both.  If I'm on set, I'm most likely to bring the Ursa, Ronin 4D, R5, and Pocket 3.  If I'm taking photos or traveling, the GFX or R5, maybe with the Pocket 3.  If I need to travel lighter or be more inconspicuous, the Komodo-X and/or Komodo, probably with the Pocket 3.

I'm thinking about taking the train to Chicago to do a 48 in a couple of weeks.  If I do, I'll most likely bring the Komodo-X and Pocket 3 with my DJI Mini 3 Pro - that's an entire shooting setup that easily can fit in a backpack, more or less - and with EF lenses, I can use the Canon VND adapter when outside and the Canon focal reducer when inside.

7 hours ago, kye said:

Having said all that, if GoPro make an interchangeable lens camera with a half-decent bitrate and a colour-managed LOG profile then it might be the tiny camera we've been wanting!

For sure, and I'd be excited to give it a try!  I was a Kickstarter backer of the Z Cam E1 and I've bought a few Ribcage kits/cameras over the years.  I was disappointed by all of them, but I'm still hoping for that magical/usable tiny sensor camera!  I have a little bag full of D-mount and C-mount lenses just waiting to go on something!

(I still wish there were a way to get a decent/non-laggy video feed from the Insta360 One R/RS series - I have a Ribcage-modded 1" module and the quality is really decent - but focus is hard, given the only options for monitoring are the camera's tiny screen or laggy wifi)

Like with anything, it's best not to get too revved up over the hype and wait until there are actual cameras around to check out.  GoPro are, of course, hiring professionals and cherry picking the very best footage/images that any of them captured.

Otherwise, the concept of using an action camera ASIC in a cinema camera isn't new - it was exactly the strategy with the Z Cam E1.  Since then, action cameras have advanced a lot, thankfully.  Similarly, the Z Cam E2 series used/uses an off the shelf Hisense board, though that one was intended for higher-end security cams/consumer cameras and not action cameras.

Of Two Lands is a good guy.

I have the 12K LF and I have a 44-2 as well as two different DSO modded 44-2's - and I also have a GFX 100 II.  If you'd like to see other stuff from the modern BM sensor or a smaller, but still pretty big GFX sensor, I can certainly put up some test clips.

I've been hearing a lot of positive things about the AF on the BMCC with the latest betas.

Given that BMD have said before that they plan to roll it out to all of their newer cameras, my assumption is that Petty will be announcing it for some more cameras at NAB in a month or so.  My selfish hope is that the UC 12K LF is included.  It'd also fix one of the major considerations if people are considering C80 or Pyxis 12K if they roll it out there too.

My other big. hope/assumption is that they'll also finally announce a USB reader for a single UC media module priced under $400.  The MM is fantastic, but it's a pain in the ass to connect the camera to a 10gE network to download it at any reasonable speed (USB and wifi transfers are both slow as hell, not sure why but the virtual network they create on the USB interface is only 100Mb/s) - and the only reader they sell now takes 3 modules which is 2 more than I have and it costs something like $1,000 - and from what I recall, it also needs to be connected to 10gE.

And getting into wild speculation, it would be interesting to see them release a smaller camera using a lower-resolution RGBW sensor.  A $3k or so 6K (or 8K) camera with similar dynamic range to the 12K sensor in the bigger cameras and Canon/Sony-level AF would be really tempting/compelling.

3 hours ago, John Matthews said:

I agree with this, except the new market could easily accept premium compacts too. There's also room for in-between products similar to the GX9, which wasn't really a bottom feeder either.

I'd also be totally OK with them releasing an entry-level M43 camera based on modern-day "entry-level" specs.  Give me a GM5 that can do good-quality 10-bit 4K at 24 frames per second with a log profile and price it at $600 and I'll come sprinting back to Micro 4/3.  Fuji was able to put more of than in the X-M5 which is $900 new - the only thing that's kept me from picking one up and playing with x mount is that the used prices are still at a "just buy it new, I guess" $870. 

Anyway, just give it a GH5 sensor from 2017 or a GH5s sensor from 2018.  It's a great sensor and I know people who are still happily shooting with their GH5.  For that price, I wouldn't even pitch a fit if it didn't have IBIS ($700 with IBIS would be about equally tempting, though!).  It overheats after 10 minutes?  Fine by me!

3 hours ago, John Matthews said:

I want smaller with M43, not more capable if it means massive bodies.

100% this.  When I could go spend $2.2k and get either a GH7 or a Nikon ZR - when the ZR is much smaller than the GH7, I'd better really care about IBIS because otherwise it's not even close.  Though the GH7 is on sale right now for $1,800 which I guess makes it more competitive, but...

4 hours ago, John Matthews said:

Yeah, that really depends on the manufacturer. They're always giving up something, with a few exceptions.

That is somewhat true, but sometimes the trade-offs in full frame terms just kind of end up making the lens feel micro 4/3sy.  Like the Canon 800/11 which is probably the most "giving something up" of FF lenses basically ends up like a 400/5.6 on Micro 4/3 - and it's surprisingly good/sharp?  The EF 100-400/4.5-5.6L is pretty decent and doesn't weigh all that much.  The slower aperture matters less on a modern body.  I'd also keep in mind that if shooting 8K on a FF body, you can crop in a bit before matching the resolution of even the best Micro 4/3 body which is 6K.

Anyway.  Regardless of trade-offs or which system can be micro-optimized to have the absolute best telephoto performance at the minimum weight, shooting micro 4/3 for telephoto reasons is likely to stay a niche use case for the foreseeable future.

For me, it seems like the future of M43 almost has to be in small/light bodies.  If I were buying one today, I'd be so much more likely to pick up an OM5 II than a GH7.  The GH7 may be the pinnacle of Micro 4/3 technology, but it's also bigger and heavier than the EOS R5 that I already own.

These days, my travel setup looks a bit different, but with a similar goal of traveling light.

I just bring the GFX 100 II and for lenses, the EF 35/1.4L II and the Fujinon 110/2.  I used to bring the Fujinon 32-64/4 instead, but then I needed to bring something for lower light/night shooting.  Plus a 2x zoom makes less sense when I can just crop anyway.  I was looking at the GFX 100RF, but it's really not all that small and when I realized I was willing to accept a fixed 35 with that, I decided to just do the same thing, but, y'know, fast.

For video, the GFX also makes it more like I have 4 lenses instead of 2.  I can record in 4K or 5.8K at full sensor width - so effectively a 28mm or 80mm lens in FF terms - but if I switch to 8K, the crop is close to FF so I also have a 35 and 110mm lenses - with plenty of resolution to crop in if I want to.  The fact that it's 8K is less interesting than it being a bit cropped.  😅

I don't really need to get all that wide so the 35 is usually enough, even if I crop in a little when IBIS darkens the corners a little.  For photos, there's enough room to crop in that I can get reasonable results going anywhere from around 27-28mm on full frame to...  something like 200-300mm after cropping.

For ND filters, I just bring a set of Kase clip-in filters - ND8, ND64, and ND1000.  The entire set fits in a tiny little box and weighs almost nothing.

For a tripod, I... don't.  The IBIS in the GFX is decent enough that I can get sharp photos handheld as long there's at least some light (if it's too dim for around 1/15second at f/1.4 at ISO 6400, that's rough - but it's just not a scenario I'm optimizing for these days).

Limitations?  Longer exposures for waterfalls are hit and miss.  I usually just turn on the 2s timer at about a 1 second exposure and shoot it like 5 times and if I don't get something that's sharp with smooth water, I decide that wasn't meant to be.  I have a lot of pictures of waterfalls already (I really like waterfalls).  The camera and lenses are obtrusive - the GFX 100 II is smaller than my GFX 100 was and that's nice, but it's still not small.  Rolling shutter in some modes is enough to be noticeable even with relatively small movement.
The fact that it's obtrusive can be a really big problem - in a lot of cities, it's not a camera to casually hang around the neck and stroll around.  I'm in Sao Paulo right now - there are only a few parts of the city where I'd even bring it out.

BUT the good news is that my phone (iPhone 16 Pro) works absolutely fine in all of the places where I wouldn't take out my big obtrusive camera.  The iPhone is good enough that I take out the big camera less and less, even when it would be totally safe to take it out.

4 hours ago, Andrew - EOSHD said:

I thought there was some breaking news for a moment then!

There was!  Huge headlines back on August 6, 1945!

12 hours ago, Emanuel said:

That’s a category error: the tool isn’t the harm, misuse is.

Again, this is an intensely wrong justification.  And there's not a single tool that was ever invented that some person didn't immediately start misusing.  It only took from July to August for my own country to go from demonstrating nuclear fission to dropping a fission bomb on a city full of civilians.

The perceived benefit of "now people don't have to pay artists to do work" is not really a benefit at all and the massive harm caused of "society can't function at all without a shared view of objective reality" is much, much worse.  That's before we even mention the other harms being done in the forum of pollution, water use, higher energy bills, and higher costs for many products due to datacenters gobbling up all available storage and RAM.

So again, it's not "just another tool" so much as it's an "existential crisis for humanity."

The smug "it's just another tool" takes are, without a doubt, the most offensively stupid ones.

Yes, ignore the huge amount of societal harm that is inflicted by a tool that lets any jackass instantly create a nearly perfect deepfake of any other person on the planet, right down to their voice and manner of speaking, and it is indeed "just a tool."  While we're at it, let's just give the average person access to thermonuclear bombs which are, of course, "basically just another weapon" and "only bad if someone blows them up ."

The good news is that, as you've already been finding, there's not a bad choice among the cameras you're looking at.  The only way you can make a wrong choice is to choose one that isn't ergonomic for you.  😄

1 hour ago, Ilkka Nissila said:

Health care costs in the US are high because of a private insurance-based system (where a large part of the money goes to the insurance company which doesn't actually do anything to improve your health)

Yes, but the point is that they are high.  People in the US make more per capita and because of our broken system, we also need to spend more in order to receive health care, have a place to live, buy food, etc.  

1 hour ago, Ilkka Nissila said:

The rest of the world is used to things like cameras being expensive and don't complain so much since the fall hasn't been from a high tower made of gold and marble. 

You are severely delusional about the amount of disposable income of the average consumer in the US.  Average rent in the US is about $1,800.  That's more than half of the post-tax income of most people and with the rest, they need to buy groceries (average about $500/month/person), transit (varies wildly, but you probably need a car unless living in a bigger city where your rent will be higher), health care (insurance ain't cheap), and...  you're now out of money.  This is also why the average US citizen is $63,000 in debt.

I've been fortunate enough to make a better-than median income and I was able to pay off my house years ago.  That's why I can afford more fun stuff now.

A wall of text with no paragraph breaks (seriously, that was barely readable, break it up man) does not fix those problems.  

The point is that for most US residents, including most of my friends/acquaintances, they never lived in a tower of gold - they lived and live paycheck to paycheck, just hoping that they don't get sick and ruined financially.

1 hour ago, Ilkka Nissila said:

Compare the results you get for dollar using a modern camera with one made 15 years ago, do you still think the new items cost more to achieve the same results?

15 years ago?  Maybe not.  6 years ago?  Yes, in almost every meaningful way.  Let's compare the results per dollar for an EOS R5 (used price around $1,800) and an EOS R5 Mark II (used price around $3,600).

1 hour ago, Ilkka Nissila said:

If you feel the camera companies are ripping people off, start your own company and make products more affordable if you can.

Reductive and stupid.  To start a new company from scratch, you'd need to burn a shitload of investor money and be able to make no profits for several years before the first model comes to market - assuming that the major players don't lock you out by buying all the inventory from your suppliers, etc.  The profit margin on camera gear is big.

This is also why Black Magic, Kinefinity, Z-Cam, and a few others have been shaking up the industry for a while - offering a bigger feature set for less money and driving the bigger manufacturers to offer more/better features in their cameras to stay competitive.

2 hours ago, Ilkka Nissila said:

US has the third highest median wages (PPP) of all countries in the world (only Luxembourg and Switzerland are ahead in this metric).

Depending on which source, we're the third, fifth, or sixth highest.  But that also comes with highest prices for a lot of things including health care.  My after-insurance cost for a dental check-up, two cavities filled, and a crown was over $2,000.  To have a skilled laborer (like a plumber or electrician) come to your house will usually cost $300+ for all but the most basic things.

2 hours ago, Ilkka Nissila said:

That said, camera and lens prices in the US have increased because the US government has increased/created tariffs which the customers have to, in the end, pay in the form of increased prices.

The trend started before the current president and is applicable to every country.  In general, fewer cameras are being released in the $2,000 range than are released in the $3000+ range - and far fewer still under $1,000.  Even if the median salary is $40,000 (according to the SSA), after state+federal taxes, that'll come to under $3,000/month - barely enough to cover rent, food, and insurance.

https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/COLA/central.html

6 hours ago, Django said:

Lens wise I've just sold my remaining EF glass and as stated still got my Zeiss Batis (E-mount) set. Also have manual Leica M glass.

Pity about the EF stuff.  I'm planning to keep mine for as long as possible and I'm still adding more on occasion.  Adapts to everything, autofocus feels native on RF bodies.  Plus most of the lenses were designed before it was assumed that the camera would fix defects with a profile.

The M mount glass will look brilliant on any system you mentioned, though.

6 hours ago, Django said:

If only Sony had an FX3 mk2 with global shutter

Isn't the FX3's RS only like 8ms already?  Usually that's enough even for fast action to look good.

6 hours ago, Django said:

Gyroflow support is also a BIG plus for C50. Free open source and tests I've seen shows it being better than any type of other stabilisation done before wether mechanical or digital!

Just keep in mind that gyroflow-style solutions usually require fast shutter speeds.

I think there are a few things at play.

We're in a place where cameras from 2019 (and maybe a bit earlier) are still totally great and usable.  The Z-Cam E2-F6 was released in 2019.  The EOS R5 was released in 2020.  The A7s III was also released in 2020, as was the OG Red Komodo.   You can go pick up any of those cameras right now and make great-looking content with more than enough resolution/quality to be played and look good in any theater.

Because of that, there's not a huge reason for everybody to upgrade.  If I look at upgrading my R5 to the R5 II, I see nothing that would be worth me spending $1500-2000 for it (assuming I sold for standard used price and bought for standard used price).  What am I getting?  A bit less overheating, slightly better DR, and more 8K frame rates that I won't use a lot?  For $2,000?  🤷‍♂️

Assuming that most enthusiasts have purchased a new camera within the last 5-6 years, they have a camera that's good enough to produce professional results, either in still photos or video.  I can sort of see what manufacturers would focus on high-end gear with big margin instead of chasing a share of the shrinking low/mid-range market.

But!  The good news is that if you're in the category of a person who bought a decent camera in the last 5 years, there's no need to get stressed by the hype around new models.  Watch people going for corporate gigs and the like these days and you're apt to see most of them carrying a 5-year old FX3 or FX6.

What are you using now?  Do you already have lenses?

Without having used it, the C50 seems like a great choice from what you have listed.  If lack of IBIS is a big problem, you could also pair it with a used Canon body (now or in the future) which has decent IBIS for those handheld shots (or your current body if you have one, if it has IBIS).  There's a reason that my R5 comes with me on every shoot.  Need a quick handheld shot?  Just grab it from the bag.  Wanna have someone go pick up some b-roll?  R5.  Suction cupping it to the windshield?  R5.

Plus the second body with decent AF can be really useful for grabbing a second angle, if wanted.  Just set it up, make sure to hit record, and let it do its thing.