Davide DB

It worths mentioning G9II, a sort of GH7 in a S5 body.
 

G9 II has a few gotchas: 
* no fan, so overheats 
* audio nerfed so you can’t use TC1 / tentacle etc
* no hdmi out when recording with hybrid zoom
Otherwise, I really liked it but it’s gone to MPB and been replaced by GH7.

It worths mentioning G9II, a sort of GH7 in a S5 body.
 

It worths mentioning G9II, a sort of GH7 in a S5 body.
 

It worths mentioning G9II, a sort of GH7 in a S5 body.
 

A lot of this criticism assumes that value only comes from personally inventing things or never having bad ideas. That’s not how execution works.
Ideas are cheap. Execution is what matters.
Plenty of people had ideas about reusable rockets, EVs, satellite internet, or brain–computer interfaces long before Musk. What almost no one managed to do was turn those ideas into working, scaled systems in industries where startups usually fail.
SpaceX didn’t win because Musk designs fuel tanks. It won because it executed faster and cheaper than legacy aerospace giants with decades of experience. Tesla didn’t invent EVs, but it forced the entire auto industry to electrify years earlier than planned. Starlink is the largest satellite constellation ever deployed, providing connectivity where no real alternative existed.
Yes, he has bad ideas. Every aggressive executor does. The difference is that his companies survive them and still outperform competitors.
You don’t have to like Musk — but dismissing his role because he isn’t the inventor misses what execution actually means.

I think a lot of people would be surprised to learn how many movie theaters are still projecting in 2K.  Movie theater projectors are expensive as hell and overall profits for theaters are down compared with 10 years ago.  Exhibitors aren't going to rush out to spend thousands and thousands of dollars on anything that doesn't have a direct positive impact on their profits.  Being able to count the pores in the lead actor's skin doesn't put asses in seats or sell more candy.

Same here. I had to leave my PRO account after 15 years. I didn't renew after what they did to the European accounts, who pay the subscription like all users worldwide. I hope they fail miserably.
I moved everything on Youtube. Such a shame.

In terms of colour in LOG and rec.2020 the only difference between cameras these days is how easy (or otherwise) they are to grade, for example C-LOG on the old Canon 1D C was so easy, it only needed the addition of contrast and barely any colour grading at all to look cinematic.
Now there are massive differences between LUTs compared to between LOG curves and colour.
So when you see all these reviews, tests and comparisons you are just seeing a LUT!
It's almost comical really, nobody gets under the skin of what the camera is doing - they're just putting their grading skills and LUTs on show.
And the codecs are all so good... no more 8bit banding.
I compared the Sony a1 SLOG3 H265 8K to Nikon Z9 NRAW 8K and there was nothing in it really, not even in terms of noise and shadow detail. You could do just as big a grade or white balance shift on the H265 footage as you could with NRAW.
Now the way I like to think of RAW as useful is as follows:
- As a way to bypass poor camera image processing... Hardly needed now... In the old days, light and day difference between something like 5D Mark II compressed H.264 and uncompressed Magic Lantern Raw (in Cinema DNG), even at 1080p it was a different league of image quality.
- As a way to increase image quality with drawback of huge file sizes. Now we get if we're lucky a 1-2% increase in image quality for a 1000% increase in file size (over H.265 10bit)
- As a way to turn off in-camera sharpening and white balance (do it in post). However image processing has got so flexible you can turn sharpening off in LOG... look how smooth and natural Canon LOG looks on the old 1D C or EOS R6 III 10bit H.265 for example
- A file format to show to clients that says you're serious 🙂
And we all know why the majority of videographers are fawning over raw delivery whereas ARRI ALEXA DPs casually go round doing it all in ProRes
That is another comparison the YouTube bros refuse to do well... the ALEXA ProRes vs ARRI RAW and Canon LOG vs RAW
I haven't seen a single good comparison!

Vimeo is in the process of deleting ALL my videos, due to their new policy of deleting their entire library of content for ALL non-current users without an active Pro paid subscription.
Also, about 90% of my Vimeo was nurfed by the copyright music shambles, where Vimeo did the 3-strikes thing and they delete your entire account. So to avoid that, back in the day, I just decided to make these videos private, and unlisted.
I have not got round to putting it all on YouTube yet, but perhaps I should?

I sincerely hope they correct this very fast. From my use, I would not say it is as bad as people are saying, but until now the h265 from my Nikons has been very very good. 

Cheap zoom lenses (and especially kit-zooms) are often the BEST lenses.
I wrote a whole thread on it here including examples and comparisons, but the summary is:
They're cheaper than almost any alternative They're flexible and very fast to use, because zooming is always faster than changing primes They improve your edits because you can get greater coverage and variety of shots in the same amount of time / setups They are in the "sweet spot" between being too sharp and looking clinical and being too vintage, but their aberrations are often actually very aligned with the qualities of vintage lenses people want, just dialled down to a modest amount They have smaller apertures so are easier to focus / less prone to focus errors and don't need as much ND in brighter situations They often have native AF and are kept updated with firmware updates They often have OIS Those with variable apertures are much closer to being constant DOF, where the more you zoom in the smaller the aperture gets, counteracting the effects of the longer focal-length, which makes your footage more consistent They don't get a lot of love online, but that's because most of the discussion online is about the things that are THE MOST of something (the sharpest, the newest, the biggest, the most expensive, etc) and being cheap and good is only really attractive to people who actually shoot in the real world and where a happy middle ground is desirable.
My most used lens is a variable aperture zoom lens, despite me owning many much "better" lenses.

I'm talking about LOG video, it really does depend on the user more than the camera how the colours come out, especially as the modern range of gear now have a similar high level of codecs.
So the Z-LOG = S-LOG = F-LOG they're all very much the same sort of thing.
Whenever you see this LOG footage on YouTube, it's been graded by the user, either with a LUT or with their own grading skills in Resolve. Yet all the comments are like this... WOW the camera has great colour science, blah blah blah.
And i's the same with RAW... All the sensors are now at a high level, similar dynamic range and so on. If anything they are now too good and are moving AWAY from the look of film.
As for colour science...
If you shoot JPEG or rec.709 video, then what the camera is doing matters far more.
But in LOG they are all using a very similar wide colour gamut, and similar LOG curve, similar white balance, it is only the 8bit side that still has a big variation between Film Simulations, Photo Styles and Creative Looks.
So just bear in mind next time you see footage on YouTube that the LUT is doing 99.99% of the colour you're seeing not the camera.

I was just about to mention how good Train Dreams looks and the magical pairing of the Alexa 35 sensor matched with the Kowa Prominar Sphericals. Stunning film and very Chivo-esque. 
As much as we say the camera doesn’t matter now I think there are arguments for both sides. I think it’s a lot like fine wine. A lot of people are fine with a $5 bottle and can’t really taste the difference between that and a $500 bottle. I can though. 
 

I've just watched Train Dreams and it's 1,46:1 🙂
 

I'd be truly shocked if the main sources on all of the ____rumors sites weren't the marketing teams for the various camera manufacturers.  These days, those sites function as a pretty major portion of their pre-release marketing as well as allowing them to do sentiment/market analysis based on how people react to the rumors when posted.

The irony, for the last two decades we have been pursuing feverously the vista vision look. One by one, years passing by we got large sensor, better codec, even raw and just as we got affordable anamorphic lens, it is now cool to film in 4;3 SD tv format. LOL

Train Dreams on Netflix

I don't know how many of you have already seen it, but I still wanted to recommend a film that I watched a few nights ago on Netflix that hit me right in the heart.
It was presented at the last Sundance Film Festival but then went directly to Netflix without going through movie theaters. And it's a real shame because the cinematography is stunning. Shot in 3:2 in the Idaho forests with an almost documentarian feel. The story is infinitely sad and very slow.
The reviews are almost all enthusiastic, and it has become one of the most viewed films on the platform in recent weeks. The negative reviews accuse it of being truly slow, but in my opinion and that of others, the beauty lies precisely in the film's slowness. If you manage to get into the mood, it hits you right in the heart. I don't want to spoil too much about the story, but the ending truly moved me.
The DoP says that the film was shot almost entirely using natural light (à la Lubezky), and many scenes are set at dawn, sunset, and nighttime using real candlelight. The chiaroscuro is a delight for the eyes.
https://filmmakermagazine.com/129137-interview-cinematographer-adolpho-veloso-train-dreams-sundance-2025/
 
 
 
 
 

Or you have pre-recording 😙

Well, if you talk about eras, I absolutely agree, but if we consider a single "historical period", the camera doesn't make a difference, except in extreme cases. We have seen many examples over the years. Your works with the mighty GH2, Independent films shot with the GH2. Blind tests where the GH2 was mistaken for a cinema camera. We have the shorts shot by Filippo Chiesa with a GH5S which has a better look than this film with the GH7. We have the blockbuster shot with the FX3.
The reality is that in common use cases, the camera doesn't make a difference. The difference is made by the lights, the set, the lenses, and the skill of the DOP. Certainly, with a more limited camera, the DOP is forced to work harder with the other tools. In this forum, everyone is still nostalgic for the 5D MKII with Magic Lantern, which scientific tests have shown does not have more than 9 stops of DR, and yet here, we are declaring the death of a camera over 13 or 14 stops of DR.
Run&gun is different of course. Other extreme cases that come to mind are wildlife documentaries where you don't have the possibility to set up cinematic sets (up to a certain point), and therefore the camera and lenses make the difference between having or not having the result. Here, in fact, RED cameras and their crazy mix of resolution and frame rate (and pre-recording) still reign almost supreme. Yet, as the article I posted wrote, action cameras are also used out of necessity simply because it is the only way to film certain situations, and then it is up to the colorist and editor to manage to prevent you from seeing the difference.
Returning to the film with the GH7, I personally don't like it at all. The look is banal, heavily color graded, and with heavy grain added in post. But I believe it was a personal taste of the authors and that it was not something done to cover the limitations of the camera. Perhaps more the limitations of the production budget. I repeat, this is a very personal opinion.

Pretty sure pre-recording does not cover a minute or two longer periods and it probably needs someone to press the shutter or record button before action starts.
Nikon has this auto capture, that would be a better solution if it works reliably and starts when subject enters the frame as configured in the settings and stops too. 
Still, in certain sports you need to start the camera well before execution, and not worry what it is doing, if you want to be able to perform. 

You won’t be buying tickets to my new feature, ‘Escargot!’ then will you?!
It’s a 5 hour documentary about the life of garden snails in rural France and with every ticket sold you, you get a free lettuce.
 

Yes, long story short. the right tool for the job.
I am a wildlife enthusiast and despite being an amateur, I find myself facing "on a small scale" the challenges I see in blue-chip productions, and there I realize how truly fundamental the equipment is in these situations. A true watershed between getting the shot and not getting it.
For a project on the marine fauna of the sand, I spent hours filming various types of mollusks burying themselves. I have a rebreather and therefore no time limit underwater. But the camera in an underwater housing does not have a V-mount battery (unless you have a RED with a 30K euro housing) and therefore you have battery limits. A clam took an hour and a half before burying itself, and I had to film the initial moment. It took me 3 hours and two dives before succeeding. Dives in which I filmed and every minute I stopped and started again. A couple of times that damn clam buried itself while I was stopping and restarting the recording. The same thing happened while waiting for a crab to eat a fish.
I cursed because my GH5M2 does not have the pre-recording function (the GH6 has it and the GH7 does not). I thus discovered that the pre-recording function is one of the most useful functions for those who do wildlife. A practically mandatory choice if you shoot in RAW and fill memory cards in a few minutes.

And a lot of small improvements too

And a lot of small improvements too