New travel film-making setup and pipeline - I feel like the tech has finally come of age

[kye]

16 hours ago, zerocool22 said:

Nice stuff! Have you shot any interviews with this setup? 

No, I just shoot travel stuff, so not really the same thing, but having said that it would crush it if you gave it controlled lighting and a fast sharp prime.  Shooting in these high DR scenes with available lighting is a torture test compared to an interview where you're rolling out the red carpet and making everything the easiest it could possibly be for the camera.

You feeling tempted?

[zerocool22]

3 hours ago, kye said:

No, I just shoot travel stuff, so not really the same thing, but having said that it would crush it if you gave it controlled lighting and a fast sharp prime.  Shooting in these high DR scenes with available lighting is a torture test compared to an interview where you're rolling out the red carpet and making everything the easiest it could possibly be for the camera.

You feeling tempted?

I see, well in my case I would be using it also for run and gun interviews with only natural light. So dynamic range needs to be great. Not sure my s5ii will make it, allthough according to cined. There is not that much dr difference with the a7siii. Maybe the highlight rolloff is nicer on the a7siii. Not sure.

I wished there were more camera stores over here that would let you test stuff in their store.

[kye]

21 hours ago, zerocool22 said:

I see, well in my case I would be using it also for run and gun interviews with only natural light. So dynamic range needs to be great. Not sure my s5ii will make it, allthough according to cined. There is not that much dr difference with the a7siii. Maybe the highlight rolloff is nicer on the a7siii. Not sure.

I wished there were more camera stores over here that would let you test stuff in their store.

I would suggest that it has enough DR, as would most current high-end cameras.  Have you done any tests to work out how much DR you're actually dealing with?  I'd suggest it's less than you'd think.  

It's trendy to complain about how cameras don't have enough DR and to continually call for more, and I have done this in the past as well, however I did it because I actually shoot scenes on a regular basis (backlit sunsets) and I was able to work out how much DR this required in real life (the BMPCC / BMMCC could just do it and the GH5 fell short) so I knew I needed around 11 stops.  I would suggest that interview situations, even naturally lit, wouldn't require as much as literally having the sun in the frame, but it's very easy to run a test and find out.

I did a latitude test on the GH7 in V-Log Prores and whatever wasn't clipped kept full quality, so with proper colour management was basically perfect.

[MrSMW]

2 hours ago, kye said:

It's trendy to complain about how cameras don't have enough DR and to continually call for more

Read that a few times about the S5ii and hoping for a better low light camera.

My thoughts to that are 😂

and 🥱

[PannySVHS]

2 hours ago, MrSMW said:

Read that a few times about the S5ii and hoping for a better low light camera.

My thoughts to that are 😂

As long as colours look shitty enough, everbody seems to be happy.😊 A lot of youtube footage from the current 10bit and raw cameras makes CineD on the Gh4 look like from a grand era of color science.

I really loved the colors from your Bmmcc footage and I liked them better than GH7. @kye I've only liked the color from half a hand full of GH6/7 videos, one of them with high production values by Olan Collardy.

 

It seems to me like it's harder for a lot of people to treat log footage shot in natural light, coming from these modern hybrid cameras of the last five years. I like my og bmpcc much better than my Lumix S in that regard, same with stuff available on youtube.

[kye]

8 minutes ago, PannySVHS said:

I really loved the colors from your Bmmcc footage and I liked them better than GH7. @kye I've only liked the color from half a hand full of GH6/7 videos, one of them with high production values by Olan Collardy.

It seems to me like it's harder for a lot of people to treat log footage shot in natural light, coming from these modern hybrid cameras of the last five years. I like my og bmpcc much better than my Lumix S in that regard, same with stuff available on youtube.

My first priority was to make the images not look like cheap digital, which I am confident I've achieved with my current workflow.  The images I'm getting sure look like film to me, especially seeing how it reacts when dialling the Exposure up and down within the plugin.

I think I have more work to do in learning to control the high DR shots, but that's something for when I am back at home and have time to experiment with different techniques.  I am still contemplating modifying my custom DCTL that works in L*a*b space to be the front-end that I will use to grade underneath the overall film look.

Once I've gotten a handle on the files and how to control them, then I was going to go back to the BMMCC images I took on my last visit here and then try to match the GH7 images to those BMMCC ones.  The light here is a bit different to at home, so having footage from the same place to compare is very useful.

I feel like up until now I've been struggling with footage that wasn't up to the (very difficult) conditions I shoot in, and now I have equipment that is giving me files that I can make into whatever I like, so the question then becomes what I want them to look like, which is a whole other journey.  

[kye]

Some shots from a few days ago in Insadong.  This area was very crowded and I did grab a range of normal shots at street-level, but the ones looking up were of particular interest to me due to the variety of architecture in the area.

For reference, this is what most angles at street-level looked like:

I have been recording a number of themes while out and about.  The first are the 'normal' street scenes taken mostly at ground level.  The second is views from the hotel window, which I posted earlier.  The third is looking up.  The tall buildings here (with its ~25M population in the metro area) are seemingly unending, in variety, size, and number.  Some are deeply creative and stylish, some are featureless and faceless and nameless.  A good subject to include if trying to capture a sense of the place.

Here are a few shots looking up.  Like all things here, it's about contrasts, and often the vegetation contrasts beautifully with the buildings so I've leaned into capturing compositions including both.  These were all taken on the same day as the above shots.

[MrSMW]

1 hour ago, PannySVHS said:

As long as colours look shitty enough, everbody seems to be happy

Lucky the colour from the S5ii is not shitty then, or if it is, says more about the user than the camera 😜

[John Matthews]

There are so many fine shots here. On the point of the 14-140mm, I've just picked one up with a G7 (yes, getting back into M43 because it's so much fun). I've seen so many great shots with it, not so much because it's a super high IQ but simply it's such a nice lens for composition, especially for travel.

Here's another set of clips from James Morrissey with his GH2 (I still have mine too):

 

[ac6000cw]

On 5/8/2025 at 10:25 AM, John Matthews said:

There are so many fine shots here. On the point of the 14-140mm, I've just picked one up with a G7 (yes, getting back into M43 because it's so much fun). I've seen so many great shots with it, not so much because it's a super high IQ but simply it's such a nice lens for composition, especially for travel.

Yes, having been a happy user of the 14-140mm F3.5-5.6 for over a decade (I'm on my 2nd copy after my 10 year old original got too much dust inside), it's a great travel/everyday lens.

Problem is that Panasonic don't make a modern equivalent of the GX85/GX9 to create the perfect travel combo for video with Dual-IS and no-crop 4K...

[John Matthews]

1 hour ago, ac6000cw said:

Yes, having been a happy user of the 14-140mm F3.5-5.6 for over a decade (I'm on my 2nd copy after my 10 year old original got too much dust inside), it's a great travel/everyday lens.

Problem is that Panasonic don't make a modern equivalent of the GX85/GX9 to create the perfect travel combo for video with Dual-IS and no-crop 4K...

Yes, I hear you, but I look at my countless videos that I've made with Panasonic cameras (GX7, GX85, GH6, G100, VX980, GX800, GM1, GX880, S5ii and GH2) and I think they look great. All the things people say about getting nth degree AF, IQ, and resolution are really just small potatoes in the grand scope of thing. The thing is I get MORE satisfaction out of a camera that is a slight challenge to make intentional choices rather than a camera filled with AI choosing for me. I feel like spring cleaning is on the horizon, getting rid of crap I don't need and trying to back to the essentials. I want more in-focus, not less. I want more tripod shots, not less. I want easier in post, not harder. I want less megapixels, not more (BTW, as those around me get older, more megapixels is not doing them justice). Finally, I want fewer variables, not more.

I'm so impressed with what @kye has been doing. He's really capturing some nice compositions and looks.

[ac6000cw]

52 minutes ago, John Matthews said:

I'm so impressed with what @kye has been doing. He's really capturing some nice compositions and looks.

I agree.

53 minutes ago, John Matthews said:

All the things people say about getting nth degree AF, IQ, and resolution are really just small potatoes in the grand scope of thing.

They are, but I think some other things are much more significant e.g. the huge improvements in image stabilization performance are game changing if (like me) you prefer to shoot handheld (I own a couple of tripods and monopods, but they don't get used very often).

[kye]

Thanks for the kind words @John Matthews and @ac6000cw ..  I welcome the change of talking about the creative possibilities that the equipment affords us in using it, rather than just discussing it in theoretical terms.

I'm now back home and starting to reflect on the trip, and one theme is that the more I use the 14-140mm the more I like it.  

For travel, where moving fast and having the flexibility are important it really shines.  The length really seems to be an asset and I mentioned before that I ended up using the long end more than I thought I would, but let me expand a little on that.

They say that painting is the art of addition, and photography is the art of subtraction.  
In painting, you have full control of the canvas and therefore getting nice frames is about starting with a blank canvas and deliberately adding the things you want it to contain.  Whereas photography starts with the entire world, which for most purposes normally contains far too many things, which means either you physically remove those things from the composition you're photographing, or you change your location and focal length to exclude the items you don't wish to include.

Obviously you can't just take a scene line the below, ask everyone to leave, remove all the signs on the buildings, remove the trees you don't like, etc, just to get a nice composition...  

So the answer is to find the elements you like, position yourself so that they are lined up, and then zoom in to get the composition you like most, like the below for example...

I don't normally post shots of my travel companions because they're not keen on being posted on the open internet, but here's a good example shot of what a zoom is great for - seeing something and quickly capturing it.  Yes, you can do this with primes, but very few people are going to travel with a 135mm MFT prime or 300mm FF lens, and even if they did they likely wouldn't be able to change to it fast enough to grab a composition like the below, and even if they could the likelihood that the FOV would end up containing all the right elements in the right proportions is very very low..

This also gives a small insight into for far behind my wife I will get while stopping to shoot this and that, so speed matters in the sense that she might walk so far ahead I might never find her again!

I also find that in the edit the variety of focal lengths gives the footage an element of variation that I really like.  For years I shot with a 35mm equivalent as my main lens, only swapping to other lenses when there was a good reason and time to do so, and I found that after a while I started to dislike the "one perspective" feeling the footage had.  It's a valid creative choice, and if that's the feeling you want for your videos then that's great, but it's not the feeling I want on all my videos.

[John Matthews]

5 hours ago, kye said:

So the answer is to find the elements you like, position yourself so that they are lined up, and then zoom in to get the composition you like most, like the below for example...

That really speaks to me. I've also heard it being described as the scene being a "menu" and you need to take something on it, only the most interesting parts. The 14-140mm does that nicely. 

With the GH7, are you finding yourself using the EVF more or the tilt-up screen for most of your travels? I'm guessing the EVF.

[kye]

2 minutes ago, John Matthews said:

That really speaks to me. I've also heard it being described as the scene being a "menu" and you need to take something on it, only the most interesting parts. The 14-140mm does that nicely. 

With the GH7, are you finding yourself using the EVF more or the tilt-up screen for most of your travels? I'm guessing the EVF.

The 14-140mm allows you pretty much to shoot whatever compositions you can see.  There were a few shots that required longer than 140mm, but by the time I add the in-camera zoom to get a 1:1 crop in C4K it's at 179mm, then stabilising in post makes it more, and then I can crop in post further, so that pretty much covers it.  

I only swapped to the 7.5mm lens once, which was an absolute PITA by comparison.

In terms of the screen vs EVF, it's really a toss-up.  

The EVF can be more stable because it adds a third point-of-contact, but it really makes people aware you're shooting at them, even from far away, and it forces you to shoot from eye-level too.  Shooting using the screen (tilted up) allows for shooting from chest-height, which I find much more pleasing for people shots, and is less noticeable too.  The added complication is that the EVF can be adjusted so I don't need my reading glasses, and can read all the information on the screen.

In practice I'm still figuring this out, but it created a few combinations that seemed to work.  
If it was bright out, I'd wear sunglasses, and shoot people from chest height just using the histogram and zebras to expose and peaking to confirm the AF was good.  Then I'd use the EVF when I was zoomed in far away or shooting up at buildings etc which benefitted from the extra stabilisation.
If it wasn't bright then I'd use the EVF for the same zoomed shots, and when I wanted to shoot people from chest height I'd put on my reading glasses and be able to see the screen just fine.  If I quickly wanted a chest-height shot I could grab it without putting my reading glasses on first, as the AF and on-screen tools are so intuitive.

[John Matthews]

3 hours ago, kye said:

The 14-140mm allows you pretty much to shoot whatever compositions you can see.  There were a few shots that required longer than 140mm, but by the time I add the in-camera zoom to get a 1:1 crop in C4K it's at 179mm, then stabilising in post makes it more, and then I can crop in post further, so that pretty much covers it.  

I'm really looking forward to trying this lens. Come to think of it, I've only have camcorders with superzooms. On the G7, I won't have any options of 1:1 except in 1080p, but I'm going to try it. As a companion lens, I'm getting the 42.5 f/1.7. The whole setup will be completely new for me.

3 hours ago, kye said:

In terms of the screen vs EVF, it's really a toss-up.  

Last summer cured me from not having an EVF as I went down to the beach on sunny days and it was absolutely impossible to see the screen on the GX800 or on my VX980 camcorder. I ended up buying, then selling, a E-M5 iii to finish the holiday. I actually liked NOT having to decide between the EVF and the screen, but when you can't see it, the camera is rather useless.