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

[kye]

8 hours ago, PannySVHS said:

Thanks a lot! That's some seriously extensive testing and great review! @kye

I'd argue that this kind of testing is actually necessary to understand how things behave.  Over the years I have tested a lot of things and it's amazing how many things that "everyone knows" do not stand up in even the most basic tests, but continue to be myths because no-one bothers to even look.

Aristotle claimed that women have fewer teeth than men, which is not true, but he obviously never actually looked to see if he was right - despite being married multiple times where he could easily have tested his claim at any time.

8 hours ago, PannySVHS said:

2x crop looks great. One thing caught my critical eye:) The 2.08x on your second setup looks to be higher resolving than the 25mm focal length on the 12-35.

No, not mixed up, but the 12-35mm has a shallower DOF and so you have to know where in the image to look to compare sharp details in the focal plane.

This is the unsharpened cropped image:

This is the 12-35mm image:

This is the sharpened cropped image:

The sharpening is perhaps a little over-correcting, but the thin edges are still slightly blurred in comparison to the proper image from the 12-35mm.

This is where it is important to know how to read the results of a test.  This comparison of the zoom to the crop matched FOV but not DOF, and while I probably could have zoomed in using the 12-35mm and also stopped down at the same time to keep DOF the same, the lens sharpness would have been reduced so it wouldn't have been a fair test.  To get around that I should have tested using a flat surface like a resolution chart or a brick wall.

The problem with going that route is that now we're no longer testing anything close to real-life, and no longer answering questions about what will and won't work in real shooting.

The test wasn't "what percentage of resolving power is lost using the CrZ function?"...  it was "is the CrZ function usable for shooting with cropped lenses?".  Realistically I shouldn't have included the 12-35mm optical zooms at all, I should have just cropped in using the CrZ function and left the images to be judged on their own merits in isolation, the same way that any project shot using the CrZ function would be.

This is the danger of pixel-peeing - it distracts from the only thing that actually matters - the image.

8 hours ago, PannySVHS said:

By the way, your Cosmicar looks like it is outperforming the 12-35 for 1.4x and 1.5x gate. Impressive.

The cosmicar really is a gem!

There's a reason that cinematographers have relentlessly driven up the price of vintage lenses over the last decades, and why modern lens manufacturers are designing and releasing brand new lenses with vintage looks, and manufacturers are even creating new mechanisms to control the amount and type of vintage looks with custom de-tuning functions.

[PannySVHS]

The comparison was great. I was thinking you focused on the leave behind the first one. Anyway, 2x crop in 4K mode looks like a great, even downsampled FHD image.

I have the Fuji 12.5 F1.4. Your Cosmicar looks like it's outresolving my lens quiet a bit. The Fuji is still a nice lens though with a very solid build and delivering a beautiful image.

[ac6000cw]

On 6/26/2025 at 11:26 AM, Fatalfury said:

Simply fantastic images and I like the dark look. Though I'd change the 14-140 to M.Zuiko 12-100 f4 for that constant aperture, while losing tele but gaining on a wide end. Feels like 100mm on a M43 body should be enough though.

I own and use both. The Oly 12-100mm F4 is a great lens, but it's much bigger and heavier than the Pana 14-140mm (560g versus 265g) - both on an OM-1:

On an E-M1 ii/iii or OM-1 the 12-100mm supports Sync-IS which gives sublime video IS performance, but even with the relatively light (for that kind of camera) OM-1, the combo is 1.2 kg and somewhat front-heavy if you're using it handheld. A GH7 + 12-100mm would be nearly 1.4 kg.

As a 'travel' lens, IMHO the combination of low weight and focal length range makes the 14-140mm almost perfect (other than in really low light, of course).

[kye]

3 hours ago, ac6000cw said:

A GH7 + 12-100mm would be nearly 1.4 kg.

Ouch!!

My GH7 (with battery, card, 14-140mm, and vND) is just over 1.1kg.  The 12-100mm is just a hair under 300g heavier, so the GH7 + 12-100mm combo would actually be a hair above 1.4kg by the time it's fully functional, and my setup doesn't even include any audio equipment, so that's also something to take into consideration.

I walked around Pompeii carrying the GH5 + Voigtlander 17.5mm + Rode Videomic Pro (1.4kg) in my hand for several hours, raising it up when I saw something I wanted to shoot.  My wrist was sore for several days afterwards, just from having the weight on it for that long.  It might be something you'd get used to, but having to train so you have the strength and stamina to carry a camera around seems a bit much to me!

3 hours ago, ac6000cw said:

As a 'travel' lens, IMHO the combination of low weight and focal length range makes the 14-140mm almost perfect (other than in really low light, of course).

I agree.  The high-ISO performance is actually quite impressive too.  For low-light I have the 9mm F1.7 with CrZ and if I want longer range than that I have the 12-35mm F2.8.  Probably the only other lens I would get for super-low-light shooting is the PanaLeica 15mm F1.7 because it's small and fast and being a Leica lens should be nice and sharp wide-open so the CrZ mode should be quite usable with it.

[kye]

I started this thread by talking about the GH7, but I think the iPhone 17 Pro has also come of age (for me at least).

My goals for using this is to keep it in my pocket, be able to shoot super quickly using the default camera app, and focus on the compositions and capturing the events in front of the camera while it does all the auto-everything required for a good quality capture.

First impressions and thoughts from a few weeks of using it.

• 4K Prores HQ files in Apple Log 2 look great and are a joy to work with in Resolve (see examples below)
• All the lenses seem to work well and even up to the 8x 200mm are completely usable hand-held, and if leaning your hand against something the 8x is almost locked-off
• It records 6 channels of audio, and they appear to all be independent and available in the NLE (see image below) which might(?) be useful in difficult situations where there's wind noise in one or one channel clips etc?
• While recording Prores Log the default camera app shows you the log image and doesn't have an option to apply a LUT, so although it's a great way to be sure you're recording LOG, it's hardly ideal.  Hopefully they fix this in an update.

Audio channels in Resolve:

Some frame grabs from out the hotel window in HK.  Bear in mind these were shot with the default camera app, through multiple layers of tinted glass, and have had a film emulation grade put on top of them.

1x 24mm camera:

8x 200mm camera:

with a bit of sharpening:

with too much sharpening (unless you're a "cinematic Youtuber"):

1x 24mm camera (ignore the reflections in the window):

8x camera:

8x camera with sharpening:

and in terms of DR / latitude, here's the 1x image brought up ~2.5 stops:

I haven't tested it in low-light yet, but to me, all this essentially means that the camera is sufficiently technically capable that I can shoot with it without feeling like the technical factors are overly restrictive.  This is incredibly impressive, given that even cameras like the GH5 needed you to pay attention to their limits in some situations.

For the first time I feel like if something happened to my 'real' camera and all I had to capture a trip is my phone I wouldn't feel like I'd stuffed up.  This is the first trip I haven't packed a backup camera body, which has given me the ability to pack a couple of extra lens options, thus 'upgrading' the GH7 rig as well.

[kye]

Here's some more grabs.

 

[kye]

Another frame grab showing a bit more DR.  Same Resolve + FLC workflow, but no grain added, so what you see below is the noise and compression artefacts from the Prores.

Default exposure:

-2 stops to see where the clipping point is:

+2 stops to look at the shadow detail:

Very serviceable, especially considering this was shot from the window of a moving train (the OTHER reason why rolling shutter matters).

[Emanuel]

@kye, your framing, beyond that of a traveller, unveils the eye of an artist :- )

[Alt Shoo]

For me, the iPhone has been competent for filming since the 13 pro max. I’ve produced whole documentaries with it. Now with the 17 pro max out, with an iPhone and maybe an action camera, I can document high quality content while being extra nimble and incognito. 

[kye]

On 10/7/2025 at 8:25 AM, Alt Shoo said:

For me, the iPhone has been competent for filming since the 13 pro max. I’ve produced whole documentaries with it. Now with the 17 pro max out, with an iPhone and maybe an action camera, I can document high quality content while being extra nimble and incognito. 

Absolutely.  Use a tripod or stabiliser when required and use an ND to shoot manually with the iPhone and you'll get top notch results with a very light setup.

Great to hear people using modest tools and putting out work.

[kye]

Tianluokeng Tulou clusters, Fujian Province, China.
These buildings have a very thick outer wall of earth and a 3-5 storey inner wooden structure that houses dozens of families.  The structure is designed to be stable during earthquakes and secure against bandits.  The oldest if the ones we visited was built in 1796.

These are just with a quick grade, mostly Resolve Film Look Creator. The DR in the scene is extreme, and while all the required info is in the files, I'm going to have to go heavy on the power-windows when I grade these properly.

Grabs from GH7 + 14-140mm zoom.

Grabs from iPhone 17 Pro shooting Prores Log with default app.
The Prores HQ Apple Log files grade really nicely, have heaps of DR, and are great to work with. The DR isn't quite as much as the GH7, but it's more than enough for these scenes.  These were graded at a different time to the above GH7 shots so probably don't match.

All-in-all, the iPhone well and truly punches above its weight when you take into account it's pocketability, the size of the sensor, and the incredible range in focal lengths.  Imagine how much you'd have to pay to get a lens that can do 13-200mm FF equivalent FOV and has exposure levels between F1.78 and F2.8 across the whole range.

[kye]

Going back to the GH7, one thing that surprised me on the trip was the GH7 + Voigtlander 42.5mm F0.95 + Sirui 1.25x anamorphic adapter combination. 

When I saw that the Sirui was under USD300 / AUD500 I was stunned as anamorphic was something that I had dismissed as simply being inaccessible to me - too expensive / difficult / complicated.  I ordered it immediately.

When my tests revealed it was quite happy paired with the Voigtlander F0.95 primes shot wide open, I decided to take the 42.5mm on the trip with me as a creative experiment.  The FF horizontal equivalent for the 17.5mm and adapter is 28mm F1.5, which is interesting but I'm not a huge fan of the 28mm FOV, so I chose the 42.5mm lens to pair with it, which gives an equivalent of 68mm F1.5.  It's a longer lens for street shooting, but will give me some distance to work with (useful for a rig that is as large as this combination) and will give some great shallow DOF too.

Here are some sample frame grabs from the night markets in Xiamen Island, China.

When I used it in Hong Kong I found the focal length really came into its own.  There were so many layers and so much movement, the best shots are just a confusing mess without the motion that helps you identify what is going on.  Here are some more minimal frames.

I have pushed the grade in these very heavily.  Loads of contrast and vignetting and a strong application of Film Look Creator too.  The Voigtlanders are soft wide-open too, adding to the look.

IIRC these images were shot with the lens stopped down a bit (I'd forgotten my ND filter!) so it can be quite well behaved.

It has sent me down a rabbit hole of looking at how to get a more vintage S35 / FF look.  More on that later.

My mini-review of the Sirui is this:

• It's very affordable
• It's large and heavy, but build quality feels very good and seems to have tight tolerances
• It's sharp
• It doesn't flare much at all, even shooting in the streets at night I only saw flares on a few occasions when the headlights of a car hit the lens just right
• The focusing mechanism is a joy, I used one finger to focus it for a lot of the time I was using it
• The bokeh is surprisingly cats-eye / swirly, and doesn't have that strong a vertical stretch (at 1.25x it's only a mild squeeze factor so that makes sense)
• It has a bit of coma with bright lights

If you like what you see above, I'd recommend it.

I started off thinking that my bag was very heavy and not taking this combo next trip would be a good way to lighten my luggage a bit, and on the trip home was thinking that I'll take it everywhere and just pack less clothes.

[zlfan]

once you are in the mf lenses realm, there is no way back. you will be a hoarder lol

[kye]

Getting prepped for my next trip and have further refined my setup.

This trip is a quick trip to China, but it's also a test case for a trip I'm taking later in the year to Europe where the packing approach will be minimalism.  Unlike the way I like to travel in Asia, the Europe trip will involve changing accommodation every few days, so packing and unpacking and hauling bags around will be much more of a pain, so I'll try and travel really minimally.
As such, my approach for this trip is "when in doubt, don't take it" and see what I actually use.

So the setup for this trip is:

• GH7
• 14-140mm F3.5-5.6 zoom, which I use during the day at F5.6 which means my 1-5 stop vND is enough
• 12-35mm F2.8 zoom, which is a great walk-around lens after dark
• Takumar 50mm F1.4 with M42-MFT Speedbooster (with bokeh insert) for "night cinema"
• iPhone 17 Pro setup (Neewer phone filter mount, K&F 1-9 stop vND, MagSafe Popsocket)

The GH7 and zooms are self-explanatory, so here's the 50mm F1.4 setup.

I have played around with "inserts" and ended up with a pretty extreme design, so this is a test to see if the vertical edges are too strong a look for me.
It's made from the sticky part of the post-it note, and a layer of sticky tape over the top to keep it a bit more together.  It sits between the speed booster and the lens, and I won't use the speed booster for any other lenses while travelling so this  will stay in there and protected, so doesn't need to be that robust.

It's a strong look in some situations and quite "painterly" in others, so I'll be curious how it goes.

For my iPhone 17 Pro, it's a phone most of the time and a camera only as a backup, so I searched for a setup that would:

• Protect my phone from drops (I dropped it on the last trip and the screen shattered, despite it being in an Apple case - the only one available at the time...  sigh)
• Still be right-sized for getting in and out of pockets etc
• Have a vND solution for when I want to shoot and use 180 shutter

I'll spare everyone from the rant about the options out there (everyone wants you to buy into their "ecosystem" now) so I ended up with the Otterbox Defender Series Pro case, which makes the iPhone feel even larger than it did in the Apple case (which doesn't seem possible but is true), but seems very robust.

The vND is the Neewer phone filter mount, which sort-of clips onto the phone (It's designed to screw onto and clamp the phone but you're clamping against the screen, so I wouldn't tighten it that much).  It's designed for a naked iPhone, so I had to modify it (and the Otterbox case) slightly where it interfered with the Otterbox case to get it to sit a bit flatter.  It still doesn't sit flush, but it goes on and seems to be fine.  I haven't got around to actually taking it out to shoot with it, so that remains to be seen.

I paired it with the K&F 1-9 stop vND, which boasts 18 layers etc, but doesn't claim to be a "True Colour" one like the 1-5 stop ones do.  It doesn't have hard stops and I think it still gives the X at the max amount, but I'll see how I go.  Not having an aperture sure sucks considering you're not really losing having shallow DOF.  

That is all combined with the MagSafe Popsocket as a safeguard.  I've used the adhesive popsockets before and they're great for giving a much better grip on the phone, but I wasn't sure how strongly the MagSafe would be.  The Otterbox claims to have magnets in it that strengthen the MagSafe connection, and this might be true.  It feels quite sturdy actually, and I tested it to require 1.75kg of force to pull off, compared to the 1.45kg of force it took to pull it off my naked iPhone 12 mini.  No idea what strength a naked iPhone 17 Pro MagSafe connection would have, but it's not terrible.

Lots of compromises involved, but it's really my backup camera, and the Otterbox case is very grippy, so I'll see how I go.

[kye]

Doh - forgot to list the 9mm F1.7 lens.  That's the ultra-wide I'll be taking too.

So the total count is one body, 5 lenses, my phone with vND.

I was slightly conflicted about the "wide-angle night cinema" slot. The SB+50/1.4 is equivalent to a 71mm F2.0 on FF, so having something wider seems an obvious thing but I'm just not sure if I would use it.  

I've mentioned the 12-35mm F2.8 as my night walk-around lens, and when combined with the GH7 low-light capability it's a fine combination, but it's not crazy fast/bright and isn't the best "cinema" option around.

The things I considered were:

• my TTartsans 17mm F1.4, which is small and light and despite being soft wide-open is probably quite cinematic
• my 14mm F2.5 which is small and light but is bettered by the 12-35mm on flexibility grounds being a zoom
• my Voigtlander 17.5mm F0.95, which is a great performer but is quite heavy
• my c-mount 12.5mm F1.9, which is similar FOV when you crop in to its S16 image circle
• my 9mm F1.7 combined with the GH7 cropping, which is fast but sacrifices resolution and doesn't have the DOF advantages of other options (although I am already taking it)
• SB + 28mm F2.8 combos, but it's hard to get a reasonable quality 28mm F2.8 in M42 mount and it's not that fast anyway

I opted to take the 12-35mm (which I sort-of take as a backup lens to the 14-140mm zoom) but if I do end up wanting a wider fast lens for night cinema, I think I might just bite the bullet and get the PanaLeica 15mm F1.7 as it'll be light and have AF and be sharper than I could ever want.

I looked at the reviews of a bunch of budget F1.4 or faster lenses around the 14-20mm mark but I'd never be sure if it was as sharp as I'd like, and spending money to get something that isn't that much faster than my 17/1.4 or that much lighter than my 17.5/0.95 seems silly.  MFT is the wrong format for ultra-fast wide lenses, and I already have lots of options for something I might not use, so the whole thing might end up being academic anyway.