Davide DB

It’s unfortunate that AI has such a weird issue generating hands as it would be ideal for the camera to also create something that looked more natural when it is doing the selfie stick removal.
Aa it stands everyone is walking round in these videos looking like a 1970s Action Man with the gripping hands.


Its an impressive camera though all the same.

Apparently one of those people on the fence was me?
So far, I like it.  Views from the 8K mode might be enough to use as quick inserts on a 4K timeline without being overly jarring. 
The 71 megapixel photo mode is really pretty good too.  I shot the thing below into the sunset.  The tree branches near the setting sun don't look awful and there's some detail on my face.  I just need to remember to hold the selfie stick more casually so the hand is less noticeably funky after their software subtracts it out.  The image SOOC (as below) isn't too bad.  It'd probably only be a few minor tweaks in curves to get the look as I'd like it. 
Pureview HDR seems to introduce artifacts on things that are moving more than a little bit.  Like holding the selfie stick at a 45 degree angle in front of myself, my feet looked a little weird as I walked.
I'm still not sure about using the camera for more than inserts for anything serious, but if I can get over my shame at holding a selfie stick with a little UFO on the end, it could be a pretty great tourist camera.

I have one on the way after looking at the image samples here:
https://www.gsmarena.com/xiaomi_14_ultra-review-2683p5.php
The 75mm F1.8 lens in particular...



Like some of the famous Zeiss Distagons it has a floating element to get close.
With such a fast aperture in combination with the close-focussing abilities make it look incredible.
The 14 Ultra in fact has two such lenses, a 75mm and 120mm.
And the main imager is 1"
Which also in the close-to-mid focus range has a very shallow DOF.

I have lighted tweaked that last one in Pixelmator Pro, the JPEGs have a surprising amount of chonkiness to play with.
Then there's the RAW capabilities...
With Motion Cam Pro there's the RAW Cinema DNG recording.
Within Xiaomi's own camera app is the expert RAW mode for stills, with Leica's colour tuning.
This allows you to completely turn off any noise reduction and sharpening... one of the main caveats of modern smartphones.
I think at £600 used this is the real deal.
The 15 Ultra doesn't change things very much, indeed to go any better would require a big leap.
We're talking at least Micro Four Thirds size sensor instead of 1", and F1.4 maximum aperture.
And to make this pocketable is going to require a lot of physics bending.
There are some other options like the Oppo Find 7 Ultra, and Vivo X100 Pro which have a large 1/1.4" sensor on the telephoto lens, 200MP.
But the lens quality itself is a bit compromised as a result.
The Vivo X100 Pro has the Zeiss modes, Zeiss lens simulations, even RAW video built into the main camera app I believe.
But I find Xiaomi's image processing with Leica to be the best of the bunch.
Looking forward to when it turns up from CEX this weekend with the photography kit which gives it ability to use filters and a proper shutter release button!
I think for street photography requiring stealth, 3 lenses in one pocket and very high speed, this is a better choice than a proper camera, X100 VI or Leica Q. The ultimate shot getter?

Nice!
 

I'm running the camera and 7" Hollyland monitor off one V-mount, recording internally to a Lexar 512 silver CFexpress card. The camera battery is in the grip but fully charged. Camera is powered via usb-c and we are indoors so far about 20-21 C.
The clips/takes are about 30 - 45 minutes each per interview.
I *THINK* the overheating would be at extreme use, ( I have never had to shoot anything at 6k 60p or 120p in Pro Res HQ for 2 hours + in one take.....) but no issue so far with anything that I think is "normal" use!
 

Yesterday I watched on Sky TV the documentary Linx, a French-Swiss documentary released in January 2022, shot and directed by Laurent Geslin. It follows a lynx family in the Jura Mountains and reveals the hidden life of this elusive feline.
https://mulderville.net/en/news/5009/lynx-interview-with-director-laurent-geslin

Geslin is fascinated by all wildlife but was particularly drawn to the lynx due to its rarity and symbolism. Living near the Jura Mountains, he found it meaningful to focus on a local predator rather than traveling abroad. The lynx, reintroduced in the area to help control herbivore populations, represents successful coexistence between humans and nature.
While he has photographed many animals (including urban foxes), making a film was a new challenge. Film allows him to tell stories in ways still photography can't. The transition required adapting techniques, such as anticipating and building cinematic shots rather than capturing single moments. He already published a photographic book about the linx.
Finding and filming a wild lynx was incredibly difficult—he once spent eight months without a sighting. Lynxes are elusive and mostly nocturnal. He used lightweight gear for mobility in the mountains and learned to read animal behavior over time. All footage in Lynx features truly wild animals in their natural environment—no trained animals or artificial setups. Geslin emphasizes that the authenticity took years to achieve. Geslin hopes viewers understand the lynx’s vital ecological role. As a top predator, the lynx helps control herbivore populations, which in turn protects young forests. He sees the lynx as the “keystone” of forest health and aims to raise awareness about the importance of preserving such species.
The cinematography of the film is very beautiful. It is not cinematic in the strict sense. It has a very very natural look. The documentary has a distinctly European style that I prefer. There are no cumbersome hosts, no one is pretending to risk their lives to film the animals. No spectacularization. There is very sparse voice over and lots of natural sounds, ASMR style. I would have liked to see it in the cinema.
Geslin appears in Nikon magazines and I became curious about the equipment used. In all the interviews he tells about the enormous effort of following these animals for two years. I couldn't find direct references to the equipment used (I have great difficulty with the French language) then by chance I came across some short shorts on his YouTube channel and a Lumix appeared. I can't tell if in a photo it is a GH5S and the other one it's a Lumix FF.


If he really shot everything with Lumix cameras, I think yes yet another demonstration of what can be done with these cameras in a genre (wildlife) almost totally monopolized by Red.
Regardless of the camera used I absolutely recommend viewing.
 
 

Yesterday I watched on Sky TV the documentary Linx, a French-Swiss documentary released in January 2022, shot and directed by Laurent Geslin. It follows a lynx family in the Jura Mountains and reveals the hidden life of this elusive feline.
https://mulderville.net/en/news/5009/lynx-interview-with-director-laurent-geslin

Geslin is fascinated by all wildlife but was particularly drawn to the lynx due to its rarity and symbolism. Living near the Jura Mountains, he found it meaningful to focus on a local predator rather than traveling abroad. The lynx, reintroduced in the area to help control herbivore populations, represents successful coexistence between humans and nature.
While he has photographed many animals (including urban foxes), making a film was a new challenge. Film allows him to tell stories in ways still photography can't. The transition required adapting techniques, such as anticipating and building cinematic shots rather than capturing single moments. He already published a photographic book about the linx.
Finding and filming a wild lynx was incredibly difficult—he once spent eight months without a sighting. Lynxes are elusive and mostly nocturnal. He used lightweight gear for mobility in the mountains and learned to read animal behavior over time. All footage in Lynx features truly wild animals in their natural environment—no trained animals or artificial setups. Geslin emphasizes that the authenticity took years to achieve. Geslin hopes viewers understand the lynx’s vital ecological role. As a top predator, the lynx helps control herbivore populations, which in turn protects young forests. He sees the lynx as the “keystone” of forest health and aims to raise awareness about the importance of preserving such species.
The cinematography of the film is very beautiful. It is not cinematic in the strict sense. It has a very very natural look. The documentary has a distinctly European style that I prefer. There are no cumbersome hosts, no one is pretending to risk their lives to film the animals. No spectacularization. There is very sparse voice over and lots of natural sounds, ASMR style. I would have liked to see it in the cinema.
Geslin appears in Nikon magazines and I became curious about the equipment used. In all the interviews he tells about the enormous effort of following these animals for two years. I couldn't find direct references to the equipment used (I have great difficulty with the French language) then by chance I came across some short shorts on his YouTube channel and a Lumix appeared. I can't tell if in a photo it is a GH5S and the other one it's a Lumix FF.


If he really shot everything with Lumix cameras, I think yes yet another demonstration of what can be done with these cameras in a genre (wildlife) almost totally monopolized by Red.
Regardless of the camera used I absolutely recommend viewing.
 
 

Yesterday I watched on Sky TV the documentary Linx, a French-Swiss documentary released in January 2022, shot and directed by Laurent Geslin. It follows a lynx family in the Jura Mountains and reveals the hidden life of this elusive feline.
https://mulderville.net/en/news/5009/lynx-interview-with-director-laurent-geslin

Geslin is fascinated by all wildlife but was particularly drawn to the lynx due to its rarity and symbolism. Living near the Jura Mountains, he found it meaningful to focus on a local predator rather than traveling abroad. The lynx, reintroduced in the area to help control herbivore populations, represents successful coexistence between humans and nature.
While he has photographed many animals (including urban foxes), making a film was a new challenge. Film allows him to tell stories in ways still photography can't. The transition required adapting techniques, such as anticipating and building cinematic shots rather than capturing single moments. He already published a photographic book about the linx.
Finding and filming a wild lynx was incredibly difficult—he once spent eight months without a sighting. Lynxes are elusive and mostly nocturnal. He used lightweight gear for mobility in the mountains and learned to read animal behavior over time. All footage in Lynx features truly wild animals in their natural environment—no trained animals or artificial setups. Geslin emphasizes that the authenticity took years to achieve. Geslin hopes viewers understand the lynx’s vital ecological role. As a top predator, the lynx helps control herbivore populations, which in turn protects young forests. He sees the lynx as the “keystone” of forest health and aims to raise awareness about the importance of preserving such species.
The cinematography of the film is very beautiful. It is not cinematic in the strict sense. It has a very very natural look. The documentary has a distinctly European style that I prefer. There are no cumbersome hosts, no one is pretending to risk their lives to film the animals. No spectacularization. There is very sparse voice over and lots of natural sounds, ASMR style. I would have liked to see it in the cinema.
Geslin appears in Nikon magazines and I became curious about the equipment used. In all the interviews he tells about the enormous effort of following these animals for two years. I couldn't find direct references to the equipment used (I have great difficulty with the French language) then by chance I came across some short shorts on his YouTube channel and a Lumix appeared. I can't tell if in a photo it is a GH5S and the other one it's a Lumix FF.


If he really shot everything with Lumix cameras, I think yes yet another demonstration of what can be done with these cameras in a genre (wildlife) almost totally monopolized by Red.
Regardless of the camera used I absolutely recommend viewing.
 
 

How to make someone addicted to drugs: first I will gift you drugs and then when you can't do without them I will ask you for money.
Another clear example of enshittification (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification)
 
 
 

I wonder that too but so far it seems to be over ten years without having needed to pay again. Apple makes their money off hardware so the software helps sell the hardware. (You could say too that about BM in a way.)
The iOS version of Final Cut is a subscription. I don't know how that's doing. There are so many other NLEs for iOS out there that are a one time payment kind of thing that it's competing against, (including their own iMovie for iOS).

"I'm getting too old for this shit.  I'm only two weeks away from my retirement."
I'm gonna be one of those craft people that refuses to use AI. Damn the consequences.  This all sucks.  
As a documentarian, even something supposedly innocuous like audio transcribing is causing more inadvertent issues than it's solving.  It's really getting in my way holistically -- although it "feels" like it's helping in the moment.
It divorces me from the nuances and intimacy of the material.  How can I be expected to make anything meaningful to the audience or to myself if I allow an algorithm to make crafting determinations, even the simplest ones?  Tools are tools, but when the tools diminish rather than enhance?
That's a recipe to being superficial.  I don't think I want to be superficial.  Unless I'm doing corporate bull shit for the pay day.  But then, the corporations using AI can now (or soon) cut me out of that calculus anyway.
Get off my lawn you damn machines.

That's the specific reason, though, that they are that different.
If BMD charge me $60 to upgrade to the latest major version every year and I am not interested in the new features that they added, I pay them $0.  If they go to a subscription model and charge me $5/month, I pay them $60 every year and if they add new features that I don't care about, I still have to pay them $60 for it or I can't use the existing features that I need.
Basically, a subscription model removes the impetus for innovation and for developing features that customers are interested in.  Like if the new feature is "we added a stock footage catalog that you can also pay to access," I wouldn't want or care about that new feature.  I haven't used stock footage before and don't expect to use it any time in the near future.
So yeah, there's a world of difference between a subscription and an optional yearly cost for extra features (and this is more or less how Luminar have been doing things and I'm here for it)

How to make someone addicted to drugs: first I will gift you drugs and then when you can't do without them I will ask you for money.
Another clear example of enshittification (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification)
 
 
 

On the BTS shots it's impressive to see how the operators hand the machine to each other on the fly during filming

Regarding technique and creativity, has anyone seen Adolescence on Netflix?
Among the most viewed TV series on Netflix is Adolescence, a four-episode British miniseries that is receiving rave reviews from audiences and critics just about everywhere. The praise is partly about the story it tells, and partly about the way the series was written, performed, and, above all, directed: each episode is in fact shot in a single, very long take, that is, all at once, with no cuts between shots and therefore no breaks for the actors and crew, and no editing required.
Adolescence was written by Englishmen Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham. In addition to contributing to the screenplay, the latter also plays Eddie Miller, the protagonist's father and one of the main characters. The director, on the other hand, is compatriot Philip Barantini, who four years ago had directed Graham himself in the film Boiling Point - Disaster is Served, a thriller that was a good success in the United Kingdom and which, just like Adolescence, was shot with a single long take.
Adolescence centers on the story of Jamie Miller, a 13-year-old student who is arrested on charges of committing murder. However, the detective plot is set aside fairly early on because the point of the series is not so much to get to the resolution of a case, but to analyze the motives behind the actions of a teenager in our times, and to place them in the social and cultural context in which he lives.
For me, who has a 13-year-old son, the first two episodes were a punch in the gut. Perhaps the absence of editing also helps to give you no respite and lower you even more into the story. Truly a peculiar product.
Two scenes in particular struck me. For the first, at the beginning of the first episode, I had thought of a crane being moved on a trolley or truck. The second one is even more peculiar because the camera goes through the window and flies high above the houses. Netflix has released a BTS showing both scenes. (Spoiler: they used a drone)
Sorry, I couldn't find a YT link:
https://x.com/NetflixUK/status/1901617851192033326
It was entirely shot on the Ronin 4D:
Spoiler alert:
https://variety.com/2025/artisans/news/adolescence-one-take-episodes-netflix-1236339292/
 

02:37:32 "We'll probably eventually charge some kind of upgrade for this."
Looks like we can expect to pay for major version upgrades in the future. Still better than a subscription, thankfully.

Autofocus!

Each time I think to change my two GH5 I check again the old work of Filippo Chiesa with his GH5s and... I save a lot of money 😉
 

I think it's a compromise but far better to have the one-take per episode than the usual cutting.
There's nothing natural about cutting really.
Our eyes don't do it.
If anything, the slow panning between actors replicates our mind tuning into one person over the other at various times, and we do that in real life quite a bit.

The frustrating thing, as an American, is that lower income folks are among his most ardent supporters yet are the ones who will end up hurt the most by his heartless, cruel policies. 
I've said it on here before, I live in a mobile home. I made a choice to live as cheaply as I could, regardless of whether I could afford a nicer home or not, because I want to live a simple, affordable life. I own my mobile home outright, so I have no mortgage. I just pay a modest lot fee every month in the community I live in. My taxes property taxes are extremely low, and I live comfortably. A lot of folks here are lower income, though, and live here because it's what they could afford. They're decent, working class folks who struggle to make ends meet. A lot of them are on public assistance, like fuel assistance and food stamps. You want to know who most of them voted for, though? Based on the yard signs and flags, most folks here voted for Donald Trump. They voted for the man whose policies will hurt them the most. It'd be funny if it weren't so sad. 
It's a testament to the Democrats and their incompetence that twice they lost to a swindler and con man because they were unable to convince a majority of the electorate that the racist billionaire doesn't give a fuck about them. 

I don't know it's educational system issue or purely political issue, but it should be clear for anyone with IQ above the "retarded" territory that the whole purpose of the trade, (even since thousands of years ago), is provide the best goods available in the world at cheapest possible price for "our" people. So even from a nationalist point of view, if my people get the best goods very cheap, my country wins. With tariffs, my fellow citizens get worse goods (because of less competition) at higher prices! Its completely opposite of the purpose of the trade.
We're living in a timeline that Christians support billionaires who publicly despise the poor, and nationalists support the losing position for the nation. 

I have a friend who still shoots GH5 professionally and his clients are happy. Really the GH5 represents insane value these days.

Each time I think to change my two GH5 I check again the old work of Filippo Chiesa with his GH5s and... I save a lot of money 😉
 

What a ride this was.
Episode 3 especially... Peak TV. Direction, writing, acting, sound design, everything just falls into place. 

 

Just watched the first episode.
Very good stuff.
The single take is extraordinary but almost seamlessly unnoticed at same time.