Davide DB

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

I'll return to Lubezki's work.  Feeling the same vibes.  The stuff he does with Cuarón, and overall in general I guess, really nurture the deep dof.
Here's a film he shot in my back yard.  I can literally see the location from my office -- which I still get a kick out of being able to 'name-drop'
 
As an indy documentarian, I gotta say, I can't really get completely behind this notion, but I do think I know what you're getting at and why useage-context with a camera is important. 
I just came off a project where the cinematographer was leaving an insane amount of shots and potential in the field.  Why?  He was trying to wield a bunch of large production shit on an full-fledged ARRI set up rather than just shooting good extensive coverage with a small simple rig. 
Yes, sometimes what he got looks great.  But, trust me, what he missed (and missed often) had better potential.  You can chalk some of it to him not being that spry anymore ... which to me would demand you go light and small to mitigate that, but he is definitely a boy-with-his-toys kind of guy rather than a remarkable creative.  Wants to have the best most powerful super car, even if he can't drive it, y'know?
Anyway, IQ superior?  Yes.  Practicality?  Debatable.  Which, coincidentally, practicality is the DP's argument for the GH7 and a 12mm lens on this Magellan movie.  I kind of like the 'too-much-grain' treatment, but, yeah, it's a choice.
Damn.  I'm rambling.  Too much wine tonight.

Media Division did a deep dive.  Big improvements for sure.  They were able to trigger overheating in some pretty extreme scenarios, but it no longer seems to be a likelihood in any reasonable shooting situation.
 
 

One of the best channels on YouTube in this industry.
Thorough, no hype and do actually make quality productions out in the field and not simply spout BS from behind a desk, holding a lav mic wearing clothing back to front.

Read this:
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/oceanfootagemastery_underwatercinematography-myoctopusteacher-activity-7396815155616989184-C-CD
 

I saw one part when he was saying that it was a little annoying that they did not get exact time remaining for recording. The same guy said that it was totally unacceptable a cine camera did not give exact time remaining on the card. OK, it is written cine, but it is still a 2200 USD camera, and h265 by its nature is variable bit rate. Simple example on a sitting interview with a static background and the bitrate goes a lot lower, while have dynamic shot with lots of movement or movement in the shots and the bitrate goes up drastically. 
The just couldn't find any thing to say positive at the camera except about Nikon color and his luts, that he sell!!!

For comparison its his ZR test

At 0.1 High S/N ratio, DR is 6 stops. In his R6III test its only 3. Not only he is not curious at all why its so low, but doesn't even notice the drastic fall of it (from 8.26 to 3.04). As a reviewer I would dig into the data.
I seriously feel he's not interested about what he's doing anymore. He's like "AF is good". What? How you tested that? Where is the evidence that its good? Canon website says its good, what else you know? And good for who? and why people should pay near $3k to have "good AF" when their current camera already has good AF? I assume R6III AF is "better" than R6II, but I need to see the evidence in practical situations. That's the job of someone who reviews gears for living.

And a lot of small improvements too

Suddenly Gerald finds no problem in DR and 10 stops is good enough to declare "cameras peaked". 

I thought I would add my project to this thread as I was somewhat inspired by it. Long story short, I modded my BMPCC to turn it into a D-mount camera. 
 

My Takumar 50mm F1.4 arrived and I took it out to compare it with the Voigt 42.5mm F0.95 with Sirui 1.25x adapter setup.
The Voigt+Sirui is equivalent to 68mm F1.5 and the Takumar+Speedbooster is equivalent to 71mm F2.0, so a bit longer and a bit slower.
In order to avoid changing lenses all the time, I did a little lap with the Voigt+Sirui, then did another lap with the Takumar and re-created the compositions from the first lap (as well as grabbing other shots too).  These images have had a film-emulation applied, and have had exposures matched, but no other changes, so things like contrast and WB etc should be the same.












My impressions:
Voigtlander is softer at F0.95 than the Takumar at F1.4
I haven't compared them with the Voigt stopped down, but I'd probably rather get a bit more subject separation than sharper images.  The extra sharpness of the Takumar makes the focus peaking a lot easier to use when using the screen (using the EVF you can see what is in focus but the monitor you need peaking on) The focus ring on the Takumar is a lot looser (not that damped but not too loose either), but of course it's backwards The extra width of the Voigt is apparent.  It makes me wonder if the Speedbooster is a little less boosting than I claimed. The Sirui has a lot of coma on the edges (stretching light sources horizontally) so the bokeh seems more horizontal than vertical on lights, whereas the Tak seems to have a zoom-blur sort of effect which is a bit odd The Tak has slightly lower contrast (hard to see but I noticed it when trying to match exposures) In addition to those, I also grabbed these with the Takumar:

Swirly bokeh! and it's not a Helios!!


It has a nice halation/glow but the ghosts from the light sources are real.  This is something I am thinking a lot about because I find them to be very distracting.




Seems sharp at the edges at closest focus.  The bokeh is confusing - sometimes with bubbles and sometimes not.
I actually find that the response to light sources in this lens is very complicated - sometimes it stretches along the spokes of a wheel and other times along the rim of the wheel. 
Also something I noticed but isn't really visible in stills is that light sources pointed straight at the camera have a flare that's like a loop, like this, which can look pretty distracting too.

My conclusions are:
The focus being lighter and peaking being more obvious makes it a bit easier and faster to use, so much so that I changed my process to where I'd adjust the vND, then hit record and then focus in the 2s it takes the GH7 to begin recording The size and weight difference is significant and I found I was able to shoot people from a lot closer with it than the Sirui The small size and weight mean it's a no-brainer to pack on trips where I'm reluctant to pack the Voig/Sirui combo Next is to test it with an oval insert to get some stretched bokeh.  As a proof of concept it certainly looks promising.

The gear doesn't matter thing is so boring, it does matter and you can't shoot much without it.
The GH1 opened a door, because the aesthetic on offer was very different to the small chip digital camcorders at the time or Mini DV.
It opened the door to all those interchangeable lenses, and there's a big difference in look between these lenses let alone between a GH1 and a Mini DV cam.
Actually you can tell the Magellan is going for a certain look too with the GH7 - it isn't Hollywood, it's documentary style and looks quite clinical in places with a deep DOF, which they didn't have to do but the Lumix lenses are like that and it works well.
So choice of gear, informs the look of what you're making and does matter greatly.
The difference in image quality between a GH6 and GH7 doesn't matter quite so much...
But the format of camera, and era of camera does.

How about Black Magic Design to buy them?
 
COMING SOON: Arri Pocket Cinema Camera 24K