A few reviews, tests, and notes I've compiled on filmmaking gear. I don't have the time or resources to do real reviews, since I don't have nearly enough kit for real comparisons; but maybe you will find some useful snippets of information here.
The videos are listed below. If you wish, you can also find them on
the Vimeo showcaseVideo Gear
The Video Gear video showcase on Vimeo. (Vimeo)
https://vimeo.com/showcase/9754507. You can also
find them on a YouTube playlistVideo Gear
The YouTube playlist where the Video Gear videos live. (YouTube)
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgONi5OR1r5fFVgqaVTXz350hSI86tWhm.
In general, the Vimeo versions will deliver the better picture quality, due
to the infamous YouTube compression.
The Insta360 X3 is an action camera with a twist — it records everything around it, in all directions. In other words, it's a 360 camera. It lets you record all your action, and then reframe it after the fact to create a movie from the views you care about. You can create amazing, dynamic camera moves, or multiple different shots, from one clip, all after the fact.
In this review I'm going to put the camera through its paces, and tell you some of the niggly details about what it means to use it in real life.
You can download a cheat sheet of the main tables from this video: X3CheatSheet.pdf
10 October 2023
Another Insta 360 X3 test -- a walk to Coire Loch, Glen Affric, on 22 July 2023.
4 August 2023
Trying out my new Insta 360 X3 on a walk to Rogie Falls.
17 July 2023
The Zhiyun Molus X100 is 100 watt LED COB cine light, which is just ridiculously small. The light head is like the size of a paperback, and a small one at that; yet it outputs a serious amout of light. Oh, and it runs on its own battery. So, does it really deliver? Let’s take a look.
23 June 2023
The Canon EOS R5C is a cinema camera from Canon which combines (most of) the features of the C70 in a body which is (nearly) as compact as the R5. It's a terrifically powerful cinema camera in an amazingly small form factor: it can shoot 8k video at up to 60 frames per second, as well as having all the cine features you would expect, like log, false colour, scopes, and so on, all with no record time limits — other than battery life.
In this video, I'll give you my impressions of the R5C after 8 months of use, talking about the snags as well as the benefits; and I'll fill in some techie details about the camera which I found hard to get online.
You can download a cheat sheet of the main tables from this video: R5CCheatSheet.pdf
30 April 2023
The Canon C70 is an impressive cinema camera, giving you serious movie-making capability for an impressively small price and form factor. And, as you’d expect, there are a ton of great reviews online about it, from the likes of Philip Bloom, Gerald Undone, CVP, Tyler Stalman, and many more.
But there are a few points about the camera that I had trouble figuring out before buying it, and since I did buy it, and I’ve been using it for well over a year now, I thought I’d share these here for the benefit of anyone else looking at this camera. So this video will give you my impressions of the C70, and fill in some techie details about the camera which I found hard to get online.
You can download a cheat sheet of the main tables from this video: C70CheatSheet.pdf
8 August 2022
The Sennheiser AVX-MKE2 is a new wireless mic kit, designed to let you easily connect a mic into a camera. It’s license-free, and self-configuring, and looks to be very easy to set up and use. And of course it promises the Sennheiser sound quality.
Since I now have one, I ran some tests, and I’ve come up with some results which might be useful to anyone looking into one of these. I’m coming at this as a low-budget video shooter, not a serious sound person; so let me tell you how this system looks from that point of view.
8 August 2022
The Canon EOS R5 has been out for a while now — it was officially launched in July 2020 — but it's still a handy camera for video recording. It's small and compact, so easy to have around, and yet records video in superb 8k, with log and other advanced video features. Overheating is close to being solved, though the 30-minute record-time limit will still be a huge let-down for many people. Still, it remains a potentially strong option for video.
In this video, I give my impressions of the R5 after a year of use, and fill in some techie details about the camera which I found hard to get online.
1 August 2022
To kick the series off, here is a quick set of tests of some Canon cameras shooting in low light — by a single candle.
This test was inspired by the BBC TV series Wolf Hall; I was curious whether my cameras could create a usable image by candlelight. So, in this test, I put three cameras through their paces, and run them through the ISOs, by the light of a single candle. The cameras under test are the Canon EOS C70, the Canon EOS R5, and the Canon EOS R5C. (These are basically the cameras I have to hand.)
This video has no sound.
14 July 2022
24 July 2022
25 November 2022
