solovetski

I have the GH5 and GX85.
The GH5 was my default body, and I used it with the Laowa 7.5mm F2, the Voigtlander 17.5mm F0.95 and the Voigtlander 42.5mm F0.95.  Occasionally I'd use a longer lens for wildlife etc, like the FD 70-210mm F4, or the Tokina 400mm F5.6.  I would carry the 12-35mm F2.8 for difficult situations where I need very fast zooming or extra IS.
That was up until a recent trip when I discovered the GX85 with the 14mm F2.5 pancake lens combo.  Not only did I fall in love with the size of the setup, and the lack of attention it raised, but I also discovered that the AF-S was extremely useful and the DoF was adequate.  
I've since come upon the idea that there are three setups that I think I will pursue:
GX85 with 14-140mm F3.5-5.6 zoom lens
Having a 10X zoom lens will be liberating because I'll be able to shoot whatever compositions I can see, the AF-S will allow me to work really quickly, and (after spending a lot of time with a DoF calculator) I realised that the DoF should be sufficient for the work I do.  This is a day-time setup.
Interestingly, this lens is the same size as the 12-35mm F2.8 lens, so not too bad in practice. GX85 with 12-32mm F3.5-5.6 pancake lens
Compact walk-around setup when size really matters, and still gives a good zoom range.  Similar use-case to the above. GX85 with 7.5mm F2, TTartisan 17mm F1.4, and TTartisan 50mm F1.2 lenses
This is the low-light setup. All that is in combination with iPhone, and especially the wide camera, which acts as a second body and gives quick access to a super-wide angle.
If I was going somewhere that camera size didn't really matter, like doing a tour with a busload of tourists, then I'd consider taking the GH5 instead, but I'm struggling to put my finger on why it would be that much better.  I know it has various better specs, but in reality I'm only doing home video stuff, so the shooting experience and the reaction of people in-frame matters more than DR etc.
My philosophy is to think hard about how I shoot and what I am trying to achieve and to challenge my assumptions.  Hope this is useful 🙂 

I don't think it works that way though.  A 12K sensor would be sensitive to moire if there were repeating patterns that happened to align with the gaps between the pixels, just like a 4K sensor.  
It might be that common causes of moire are around a certain size and therefore impact one combination of sensor resolution / sensor size / and focal length more than other combinations.  Also, lower resolution sensors might be more prone to moire as they're typically older and there were larger gaps between the pixels than there are now.
Lower resolutions are likely to have issues on cheaper cameras too, due to the camera line skipping and therefore effectively creating very large gaps between the active pixels.  
Sadly, there's lots of different ways to create moire, and many of them tend to come from strategies to make the product more affordable!

People seem to be obsessed with nit-picking the colour science of cameras, but indicate they don't colour grade for one reason or another.
To me, even a few simple adjustments can improve the image so much more than the differences in colour science between manufacturers.  In fact, the image out of camera is like a plain sponge cake straight out of the oven - it's nice and the quality matters but it's far from the final result.
Colour grading is also talked about as being super complicated, and it can be, but it doesn't have to be.  Simple grades can still be really powerful.
Here are some examples from online, to show how much of a nice image is camera colour science and how much is colour grading.
ARRI  LOG:

With ARRIs LUT:

Grade:

The above grade was done using only white balance, the lift / gamma / gain controls, a vignette, log wheels, in that order.
To look at skin tones, the holy grail of camera colour science - here's a before and after....   before:

Then on top of the previous look, here's additional treatments to give it more of a film look.

These additional adjustments were: Gain (to lower exposure), white balance, saturation (lowered), darken shadows, in that order.
Which was inspired by this frame from Sicario:

Here's the video showing the whole grade: https://youtu.be/8GkcqEA72QM
 
Next example - SOOC:

with 709 conversion:

Grade:

Video link: https://youtu.be/fRDjEB6ryyQ
 
Next one - with 709 conversion:

Grade:

Video: https://youtu.be/OmBBYHMi_ek
 
Next one - SOOC:

With 709 conversion: 

Grade:

Video: https://youtu.be/UNW_8jcGJqw
 
There are literally more examples online to count, but I just focused on the more neutral looking colour grades, as the people doing dirty film grades probably don't care about skin tone minutia when they're going to pummel the image with Dehancer etc.
So, what's the TLDR?
Even half-a-dozen simple steps applied in addition to the manufacturers LUT can make a huge difference It's about making small changes to make the image look slightly nicer, and they add up The reason that fancy cameras look incredible is because the colourist takes the great work done on set and expands on it How do I get started?
Look at the image and work out what tool might improve it (if you have no idea, just try the basic ones) Wiggle whatever tool back and forth, deliberately going too far one way and too far the other way, then find the best spot Compare the adjustment you just make to see if it makes the image better or worse, if it's better then keep it, otherwise undo
(sometimes a really good adjustment will look completely natural and the 'before' will look like something is being applied to the image and is damaging it) Go to 1. Repeat until you can't find anything that makes the image look better. If you're using another image to inspire your look, then for step 1, just look at both images and work out what looks different about yours, and try and fix it.  Is it brighter? Darker?  More contrasty?  A different colour?  More or less saturated?  Adding a vignette to lighten your subject or darken the other areas of the frame is a good trick.  Looking to find anything in the frame that's distracting and de-emphasising it is really useful too - even just lowering the brightness or saturation can really stop it from fighting for attention.
Even by the time you've adjusted these basic tools, you'll be well ahead.  

Welcome to the free peer-to-peer colour grading course! ???
The idea is that we all have things to learn from each other, so we all grade the same clip and then you explain what you did if someone is interested in your grade.
These are the rules:
No criticism.  NO CRITICISM!!  Seriously. If someone asks for constructive feedback then sure, give a few helpful pointers (and not an essay), but this thread is about learning from each others strengths, not pointing out each others weaknesses. We are here because we are not professional colourists, and some of us only do this for fun and aren't pros, so give us a break. If we criticise then no one will grade, and... If no-one grades, no-one learns anything. You don't have to grade to participate, but please do if you are able to. You can post multiple grades if you want.  Try different looks, see what works and what other people might like.  Grading is subjective. Anyone is free to post a clip/still to grade, BUT, You must post two grades of other clips before you post your clip for grading.  Otherwise we'll have a thread full of clips and no grades.  See rule #2. If you post a clip, please include what colour/gamma profile it was shot in.  This helps to transform the colour space. Please post the file SOOC if possible (if it's not too large a file size) or at least a completely ungraded unprocessed clip from that file.  Be sure to maintain bit-depth and resolution. Please post relatively nice clips, not ones that are impossible.  Try to remember that we're trying to learn colour grading, not show off our troubleshooting skills. Don't be an asshole.  Seriously, just play nice and get along I am serious about Rule #1.  Posting your creative work is an act of courage - criticising others is an act of cowardice.  If you are an asshole I will call you out, and I will not be polite about it.
All that said, here's clip number one.  Have at it!
https://www.sugarsync.com/pf/D8480669_08693060_6029821
Clip shot with GH5 in 150Mbps 4K HLG, shot with sharpening turned all the way down.  I have reason to believe that the HLG on the GH5 is neither rec.2100 nor rec.2020, but rec2100 is probably good enough to get a decent grade.  I shoot auto-WB so it probably needs adjusting, and there's a bit of noise too, but it's not too far gone - I shoot in way worse conditions than this.  The clip is from a tour of a traditional village temple in Nha Trang Vietnam.

I think a key piece of the puzzle is the human side - how we see and how our brains interpret what we see.
Our eyes have an aperture range and focus just like a camera lens, so anything that is outside of this range isn't going to look natural.  
Images with slightly too shallow a DoF for the perceived subject distance will seem un-natural, but might be what we see if we have been poisoned or drugged and our pupils dilate beyond their normal range.  If you go shallower than this range and it's just going to look completely wrong.  It's AN aesthetic, but it might not match your DESIRED aesthetic.
Our pupils dilate in low light conditions, so it's going to seem more plausible to open the aperture a bit in low-light situations.  Our eyes do adapt the gain from our rods/cones so shooting with a fixed ISO isn't necessary as there is some flex there.  In very low light we switch from the cones (which are the colour-sensing ones) to the rods (which are monochrome) which is why in very-low light we can't see much / any colour.  Reducing saturation in colour grading might help in making scenes set in very low light feel more natural.
Our pupils also dilate when we are looking at something we really like / love, and our eyes can adjust the gain down a bit to compensate, so opening up the aperture for romantic scenes is also appropriate.
The other non-DoF element is in colour.  We tend to remember scenes as being more colourful than they actually were, and I would theorise that this effect is greater if the memories were positive ones, so this could also be taken into consideration during post-production.
I think a large part of film-making is using the equipment in ways that deliberately trigger the right emotional notes and psychological connotations, so knowing what these are and using them to your advantage is going to help your work be interpreted correctly, and the piece be more engaging.

I was thinking the other day about how almost all lenses look best wide open.
So if it's a full frame F1.4 lens you see most clearly the rendering it has wide open rather than say, F5.6.
The advantage of a 2x crop sensor is that you get to shoot wide open and see more detail in backgrounds.
You take, say a 10mm F2.0 micro four thirds lens, it has the look of F2 but the deeper DOF as well so the setting isn't completely creamed out. If you have a really beautiful setting, you don't want it to be invisible and just bokeh in every shot.
So you could stop your full frame lens down to F4 or even F8 but then the whole character of the lens is lost and they all look uniformly pretty much the same beyond F4.
I think it begs a comparison... I might do one soon.
Take a Super 16mm 26mm F1.1 lens on a GH6, and compare it to a 50mm F1.2 on full frame, and also the same 50mm but stopped down to F2.2 to match the equivalent aperture of the S16mm lens at F1.1 wide open.
On the otherhand, the advantage of full frame might reveal itself more clearly when the focus distance is further out, and the subject remains a little bit separated from the environment, whereas on the 2x crop camera they'd be on the same focus plane, 'infinity' might start from about 3m outwards.
I understand the appeal of medium format, 65mm, large format cinema cameras, full frame, and so on...
Just think that 2x crop is not without merit and can even serve the story better in many cases.

Last weekend was shocking. Absolute pure evil and terror. A brutal loss of life in Israel.
It is understandable they are out for revenge, but it should be Hamas and terrorist groups that get wiped off the face of the earth. Not women and kids.
A lot of binary views out there, with people taking sides, that's the nature of war I suppose.
This isn't my war.
And it isn't even many of theirs. There are so many civilians in that part of the world who want nothing to do with Hamas and just want to live peacefully in their home without the threat of Israeli bombs falling and occupation.
Surely we can all agree on this - that women and children should be spared.
The Israeli government doesn't seem to want to do that.
Many of the young Israeli victims at the music festival who were slaughtered in the prime of their lives also sympathised with the NORMAL people in Gaza who are NOT terrorists. Most people are not in nodding-dog mode USA-government style total adoration of the Israeli government and their politics.
I also think it is darkly ironic that so many on the extreme socialist left of Western politics and even many in the LGBTQ community seem to want to think of Hamas as heroic freedom fighters. Actually if these people ever came face to face in reality with Hamas they would be the FIRST in line to get beheaded.
I despise the actions of both Hamas and the Israeli government. Palestinian civilians as mere collateral, the occupation of their land, it is all so wrong.
Before wiping out terorism in Gaza there should have been a MASSIVE humanitarian effort to evacuate the civilian women & children population by sea.
By going ahead with a ground-invasion possibly as early as this weekend, is the Israeli government comfortable to be seen in the eyes of the world to be committing genocide? Does it want the death of nearly 2 million innocent people on their hands and to lose the support of the world's public?
Yes they are entitled to destroy Hamas and defend themselves so that what happened last weekend will not be repeated.
No, they cannot be allowed to take senseless revenge on Palestinians by bombing kids in their beds, it is the stuff of war crimes.
Hopefully people in a binary view, blindly supporting ONE SIDE against the other will be able to come to terms with the fact that no binary argument is ever valid in war.
As for the West, we seem to be standing by without any plan whatsoever to get the civilian population out of Gaza to safety. We are sending the navy, warships, no rescue boats, no proper safe corridor into another country, nothing.
Of course it would be a big logistical effort, with massive number of security checks, but even a few large ships could save thousands of lives, even if you just take children or those under the age of 18 and their mothers, sisters, brothers.
Leave the Hamas hardcore fanatics to fight, and get the kids out of there...

Now that my 2023 season (weddings mainly) is drawing to a close; all shoots in the bag, just 4-5 jobs still to edit and finish up, I am thinking about next year.
I’m always thinking about ‘next year’ actually because one eye on the future and all that, but as is so often the case, thoughts and plans over the course of a season begin to stack up, the season ends and I’m exhausted/run out of enthusiasm to see all of those plans through.
Year on year.
But 2024 is going to be different…
First of all, I am not carrying the fatigue off 33 jobs as I was at the end of last year with a more controlled 21 from this and a strict cap of 15-20 going forward.
The two Covid years of ‘20/‘21 caused another kind of fatigue, a weariness due to lack of development, due to lack of work and funds; just 6 from what should have been 60 jobs over that period.
So after 4 very inconsistent years job-wise; 1+5+33+21 and some kit and work practices that I am less than enthused about, I am not only making, but will be sticking to some fairly fundamental changes that I will be putting in place over the Winter.
The first of these is volume of workload with 15 jobs as my minimum and perhaps ‘fully booked’ target but with the capacity to go as high as 20 depending on my level of interest. That is the point I have already hit actually…
The second is tightening up what or rather who, I take on. Most of my clients and jobs are exactly what I was looking for but could still be tighter, so turning up the screws in that dept. 
Third, revising my approach to capture, ie, kit. My lighting is nailed down as is my audio but cameras and lenses less so and I have been frustrated with all the combos I have been using since…well since forever actually. The hybrid nature of my work requires not only a specific skill set, but a specific set of tools. Fortunately, those do now exist with various brands so it has become a question of who and what rather than hoping the next gen will deliver. All of the current main players deliver, it’s just which will suit me best. (It’s a Nikon/Lumix mash up for me BTW going forward).
Fourth, workflow/edit. From the photo side of things, not unhappy and my only plans there are to refine a specific look over this Winter based on what will now be Nikon rather than Lumix files. On the video side, less than happy. Not unhappy, just not quite where I want things to be and whilst I could do an @kye and ‘learn colour grading you fool!’, it does not interest me enough beyond a point. I’m not even sure I’ll stick with log and may go back to shooting a profile because whilst it might not have the ultimate scope, there’s a lot more consistency (*for me*) with that approach. I love editing pics, but hate grading video! Possibly if I shot raw video, I’d enjoy it more and that is an option I am at least going to explore…
So in a nutshell:
1. Take on less work.
2. Tighten up who I work with.
3. Brand switch including more compact set up/less tools.
4. Revise/refine output.
5. (Bonus Ball) All of the above combined = greater enjoyment = greater job satisfaction = greater output = leads to more of the same.
How about you? What plans do you have? Any direction changes you might be making?

Of course, I don’t judge the quality (hw, sw and video) from their stock price 🙂. But they are under enormous pressure to survive, it is not like being a private company. They did many miss steps so now they seem to be ripping off customers to try to stay afloat. Btw I was a GPRO stockholder.
My first Gopro was Hero 2 and went up Hero 10. In parallel I started using insta360 cameras and now I’m Gopro free 😊 although I use sometime some of my customer’s ones as backup cameras.
I filmed in harsh situations so my experience could be different than others.
I have mounted on Rally Cars in Lapland and Africa, on wings of Military Jet, on desert's Buggy, Alaska Heliskiing, MTB etc..

The number of freezes, overheats, battery draining (enduro battery was made because the standard one was basically useless in winter conditions...wtf) that I had it was just so frustrating.
Gopro Hero Max is so old that is insane that they still sell it and the software is ridiculously bad compared to the insta360 one.

Gopro Mini, Session etc they still don’t know what to do… seems a trial and error approach
Gopro 10 was probably the buggiest camera that I had from all the camera that I have owned. Just do a google search for freezes, overheats, battery drain... and you will see that I'm not the only one.
And let’s not talk about their subscription model that they try to “lock you in” with hw discount hoping that you will not cancel a pretty useless subscription.
I was a big gopro fan, but they failed so many times on me that I don’t trust them anymore.

The 12 should have been a FW fix of the 11.. but as quoted company you need to bring more revenue and is a declining market too as form many a phone is a better solution than a gopro.












 

I recently asked for book recommendations to learn about human vision and was given a link to a free PDF.
It is incredible.
I'm only a quarter of the way through, but I'm absolutely blown away.  The human vision system looks like it was designed by committee and then re-imagined by Dali and Picasso, while on drugs.  It is a wonder we can see anything at all!
Did you know that the rods and cones (which detect light) are BEHIND a bunch of nerves and nerve cells and blood vessels, so the light has to go through a bunch of crap before you even sense it?   
The book is actually a mix of how the human vision system works and also what we have done with the tech to try and align to it, so it's a nice blend of biology and tech.  It's also very readable and tries to be as non-technical as possible.  This is a rare find compared to other books that are hugely tech heavy.
Take the red pill with me...  download it here: https://www.filmlight.ltd.uk/support/documents/colourbook/colourbook.php (download it by clicking on the box next to the file size).

Yeah, just a little frustrated about the whole world seemingly taking digital cameras and giving them a bunch of crap that is increasingly fringe and specialist at the expense of simply having nice looking images.
Everyone loves how the Alexa looks, even the original, but then when it comes to what features we demand in a camera, somehow image quality comes last, with all the BS somehow being more important.  Non-cinema cameras have worse image quality now than they did in 2013.
No-one stopped to ask...   if the first 2 million pixels looks like crap, why would I want to have 62 million more?

It makes perfect sense to me that ALL sensors today, other than that intended for cinema/TV should be square because then best of both worlds!
Just set up custom overlays on the screen and it's easy to see what is possible from any scene.
With my photography hat on, I'd MUCH prefer to shoot this way without having to continually rotate the camera physically, but see the projected result/cropping on the screen instead.

Decision made, I am getting one.
Why? Because I have spendyitis vulgaris?
Nope. Because it's only the second time in my life I have been inspired by a camera.
The last time was Spring 2011 when the original Fuji X100 was announced.
I drove 200 miles to a trade show in March to see and handle the thing and knew instantly it was right for me so preordered and had one of the first available in the UK.
It arrived the day prior to my first wedding of the season so I took it alongside my pair of Nikon D3S's with big boy zooms.
It was an instant revelation shooting bridal prep right up to the point the battery ran out of juice which coincided with the end of bride prep. Oops.
Viewed the files when I got back and preferred them over the so called 'pro' camera files. There was a certain 'filmic/organic' look to them that has never been replicated by any camera I have ever used.
I bought some more batteries and increasingly used that little guy over my pro cameras before actually shooting a large chunk of the season with just the X100.
With hindsight, that was a little bonkers so as soon as the X Pro-1 was announced for the following year, I preordered a pair plus all 3 launch lenses and dumped the big Nikon stuff.
Again with hindsight, it was probably a bit much/too little but I traded 'image quality' and joy of use for outright capability and range.
Nothing has come close since.
OK, the X Pro 2 did and so did the XH1 and more recently, the S1H, but none of these have really captured the intangible magic that the original X100 did.
Today, I reckon a X100V might, but I think I have been there and done that now and it would not be another 'X100 moment'.
I am pretty sure the Zf will be. I'm not expecting to get those same 'filmic/organic' files that the original X100 produced. I think that was off it's time, but instead, at the very least, the ethos and joy of using such a set up. But so so much more capable and without the shortcomings (crap battery life, super slow start up time and AF) of the X100.
My education and career was for 5+ years on F2's or 3's, - it's that long ago, I'm not entirely sure so there is some heritage there just as my first proper camera was a Fuji STX2 that my grandparents gave me for my 16th birthday, which fostered a sense of nostalgia when I went fully Fuji in 2012.
I have maybe 7 seasons left in this industry. We'll see about that, but 30 years I think is probably long enough and I think I am heading back to my roots and Nikon to see out those years.
Not 100% committed yet, but I do have a need now to have something relatively lightweight and compact and around 35-50mm for at least 50%+ of my stills work so am going to get a Zf with the 40mm f2 SE lens as a very minimum for that very purpose.
Beyond that, it's in Lumix's hands... They either produce a S2R or S2H within the next few months, or it will be Nikon all the way for me. It might still be Nikon regardless, but I need to give Lumix that chance because it will be a big and relatively costly move.
Or it could even be a Nikon/Lumix mix as my S1H could easily be re-purposed into the mix as my dedicated static longer form video capture tool at which it excels.
 
 

I hope that unlike the Z9/Z8 that Nikon have got their supply act together otherwise it could be a long wait to get one even at the new price.
It looks to have the same/similar processing clout in it as the big cameras so who knows whether that might be an option further down the line.
Unless RED have got a super specific patent on "RAW video shot at above 23.89999999 fps inside a camera shell that looks quite reminiscent of classic SLR cameras from the 20th century made by a manufacturer whose name begins with N and who were founded on 25 July 1917 at roughly midday local time".
Because they might well have 😉
 

I've worked with a film director Chinese-Portuguese from Macau I simply find unique, even though to come to my mind another one from past also 'cause the way they work with female characters:
https://wolffianclassicmoviesdigest.wordpress.com/2019/07/07/george-cukors-way-with-women/
 
I invite everyone of you to pay attention to her career... here is her most recent motion picture released in China these days (September 28, 2023), more specifically Hong Kong production -- where she got her master's degree after graduated from Taiwan:
 
Her debut as director is this one:
https://www.cgiii.com/trailers/item/sisterhood

I would probably only use high resolutions (4K and up) for projects with a heavy amount of VFX which is where I would find the ability to scale and reframe useful. Or if I specifically want that super crispy look. In term of visual quality FHD and 2K are more than adequate for narrative films. Most movie theaters are only projecting 2K DCP. 35mm film prints were only about as sharp as 720p. I even kinda prefer a softer look, and I suspect a lot of others do considering how many people use high res raw shooting cinema cameras, and put vintage lenses and diffusion filters on them. Many of my favorite films are shot on 16mm, and I've always loved that soft, grainy look. 
I'm a big fan of/greatly respect David Fincher, who uses the highest resolution cameras he can for more flexibility. I personally don't like shooting this way. I prefer to have less flexibility in post. I get optional paralysis and would be too tempted to keep tinkering and tweaking endlessly when the options are limitless. It's easer to force my choices in production because the options and time are limited enough to allow me to make some snap decisions, or to force other decisions. I'd rather get the look I want in-camera.
I'm more interested in seeing how upscaling software will advance. The martial arts action film The Raid, which was shot on the Panasonic AF100 (remember that camera??) is being upscaled/remastered in 4K and the frame grab samples released by the director look good.
 

F1.2 was the maximum, or F1.0 if you count the EF 50mm F1.0
F1.4 was the norm, a balanced option much smaller than F1.2
Look at the size of an EF 50 1.4 vs the F1.2, much smaller, or smaller still the Canon FD or Olympus OM 50mm F1.4
It's tiny
F1.8 or F2 was for sharpness, F1.4 for portraits, softer skin, more ethereal look.
Now in the mirrorless day, there's not many RF lenses at F1.4.
They're either enormous F1.2, or cheap shit.

My recent purchase decisions have very much been lens driven and the R3 has been on my radar for a while as the near perfect body for me as I prefer a built in grip to a detachable one, but at the same time do not care for the weight.
So Z9 vs R3 = a win for the R3.
But then it falls apart for pretty much the reasons Andrew stated.
My favourite lenses are the Tamron; 20-40, 28-75 G2 and 35-150, only available or can be adapted to Sony & Nikon, ie, I could stick all of those on a Z9 but none on a Canon.
Also, the Sigma Contemporary line; 20, 35, 65, 90, 105 and 28-70. Sony or L Mount only. I like these for video work as they have both an aperture ring (well the primes do) and a manual focus switch which is part of the overall combo why I shoot L Mount for video.
The only lens I actually like in Canon RF mount is the 28-70...but it is monstrous...and if I was to choose the R3 as my next stills camera, although I could live with this combo, it's not a 'one and done' combo because I could live without going wider than 28mm, but need longer than 70 and there isn't that much scope to crop with the R3.
But having said that, it's still a near 2.5kg combo when the Sony A7RV + Tamron 28-75 is only about 1.5kg and can be cropped hard.
Lenses have been my issue for well over a decade, partly because I have avoided Sony and to be fair, with good reason as until recently, I have found Sony cameras to be a bit meh. The A7RVa was the first that actually ticked the box and the A7RV even more so and I am struggling to see a better option for me for stills than that A7RV + Tamron 28-75mm f2.8 G2 combo as it ticks...well every single box.
Canon though, they have never been able to entice me into spending any money with them. Owned probably 50+ cameras but never a Canon.

I can say I personally switched away from Canon (despite LOVING their cameras) when my R6 got lost because of the RF mount. When I bought it I figured more options would quickly become available, but there's just no reasonably priced upgrade path, unlike with L mount. You either buy crappy plastic 1.8 primes or 2500$ ultra amazing lenses.

I've been looking at film, not as the ideal reference to replicate, but as a data-point to help understand what we are seeing.
What I have been noticing is that on film, finer detail is present but at a lower contrast ratio, whereas digital keeps the same level of contrast regardless of the size of the detail (up to the sensor resolution limits, and subject to the lens characteristics of course).
For example, here's an image from Game of Thrones, shot on Alexa/RED:

and here's a closeup:

Notice that the individual strands are basically as bright as the larger areas of his hair, right up to the resolution of the file.
Same with this closeup of an image I posted earlier:

There is a little bit of contrast loss in these examples, but lenses and compression are also in the mix too.
Contrast that with this shot from the original Blade Runner, which was obviously shot on film:

Here's a closeup from the above:

Note how the individual strands have far less contrast with the background than the more solid areas with many strands of hair.
Here is the MTF chart of Kodak Vision3 500T, which confirms these observations.

So, what is the actual resolution?
<snip> see below.....
Ironically, digital sharpening methods have a completely inverse response - they increase the contrast on fine detail rather than decreasing it.  
So, digital cameras take a readout from the sensor that has an essentially flat MTF curve, and then apply a transfer function that does the exact opposite of what film did.
Awesome..... screw you too!
Food for thought.

The a1 has by and large flown under the radar so its diminishing price on the used market does make it an interesting proposition a bit down the road to do a poor man's 10% of the price / 90% of the image version of the Burano with one.
Need a name though.
Base it on the Venice* obviously, so it has to be something with lots of canals.
But a bit more rough and ready to reflect the price.
And a bit more northern for the dourness and attitude.
Right, the Birmingham it is then.

 
* Fun fact is that Birmingham is one of the gazillion places referred to as the Venice of the North but in actual fact it should be that Venice is called the Birmingham of the South as Birmingham actually has more miles of canals. All built by order of The Peaky Fucking Blinders presumably.

As you can see here with this Sony rep and his Zeiss CZ.2 lens, shaving those precious millimetres off the camera has revolutionised the way he shoots.
And that is before you even get to the main raison d'être of a 1.4kg weight saving vs VENICE 2.
That 1.4kg is crucial and a game changer when you have 35kg of tripod head, rails, cages, matte box, monitors, EVF and lens attached.
He must really feel the difference in his back all day long.

Here is one of our most adventurous and creative shooters, Nino.
As you can see the size of the BURRITO is once again a total game changer here as it allows the lovely new Cooke to move back a few cm making it necessary to break your wrist to reach it.
The added advantage here is that your hand forms a lens hood, reducing that nasty flare from the single coating!
And as we can see, the ENG style rig high up on the body definitely isn't unbalanced with a high centre of gravity from all the shit mounted on the top handle!

Finally we have the more minimal rig here.
The 2.8kg BURRITO clearly needs the 68 rods under it and a tripod head the size of a bus. Otherwise the whole thing would collapse, giving an unprofessional aura to the shoot.
I think that is an absolute brick of a battery on the back which is all part of the absolute game changing form factor as a cinema camera.
Have you EVER seen a rig like this before!?
REVOLUTIONARY!!!
Yours for only $25,000!
*Or just get a Sony a1 with same sensor from cash converters

SONY BURRITO

Great read and recap! Thank you! @kye I feel, like my LX15 is almost everything i need in the image quality department but that is for my personal work of course. Or maybe beyond? I got inspired by this great but slippery camera to shoot personal stuff again. The slippery tiny body forces me to shoot, frame, move and conceptionalize in the moment with care and dedication. The odds of ergonomics become a challenge and by practice actually great. Realizing its advantages, there are many of them, this camera has indeed become my favorite personal camera. It equals my love I had for my old time favorite, the legendary G6.
Image quality is plenty. That 8bit codec in 4k is the same as in the GX85 and punches far above its weight. Grain, texture, color palette are beautiful. I shoot in vivid for gradeabilty in post. I got this advice from reading Harrison Kraft giving advice on his LX. Ooc colours are okay in this profile, in other profiles really gruesome what made me diguise this camera right after purchase. Thanks gosh I was wrong about it.
Another thanks to kye for elaborating on pushing the color in the color profile or at least not berobbing the camera of it, due to the logic that the processing is before codec compression.
So, filming in vivid and taming the peak of highlights down to around 768 in post and the image becomes already much better. Working knee and toe, saturation, coolness and warmth and I am already close to what i like. That is in the classy 8bit 4k, no 10bit in sight or needed, cheek in tongue.:) The HD 50p 25mbps codec on the other hand is pretty gruesome. On a side note, the tiny 10mbps codec for 25p 720p on the GX85 is surpisingly strong, which sounds admittedly silly. But that's what I had to find out on accident when I filmed an important family celebration in 720p glory. Of course I was silently screaming "Shyte, I fxxxked up big time this time!" when I wanted to drool over some of my cinema verité awesomness. 😊 But surprise, it held up pretty good regarding achievable hues and color work. Just another example how good even now super affordable or cheap 8bit 709 cameras have become. A Sony A6000 with the 50mbit codec update is an interesting prospect in that regard and would be the ultimate 1080p S35 8bit 420 somewhat pocketable hybrid cinema camera. Lotta categories of greatest cameras. So every fan finds their altars. 😊
Lens on the LX is beautiful. Such a magnificient rendering in all focus lengths. Btw, as many of you know, in 4k the LX15 has only 2/3 inch sensor estate. Still trumping a G6 in lowlight, despite the m43 sensor of the G6, which is four times the area size. I call the LX my personal 16mm cinema pocket cam. I don't mind the missing S16 and be happy with close enough to 16mm powerhouse.:)
Here is a repost of Harrison Krafts video. Thanks to this guy I started doing personal work again.
 

Another great bit of advice I got in my early days was to go study paintings.  Particularly Vermeer's and Caravaggio's.  
As an idiot that didn't understand what made a nice image work and a bad one fail, just analyzing and deconstructing the craft of painting helped a ton.  Absolutely brand-dead simple ideas like having your subject brighter than the background (contrast) confounded me as a newbie, but once I started seeing the techniques like that in practice I couldn't unsee it, and I got better.
Which is why I'm pretty camera agnostic these days.  There's so many fundamental techniques that need to be in place and exercised to create awesome images.  Grabbing the most expensive camera/lens doesn't accomplish that for you, it only assists.