Stanley Kubrick shot entire rooms in "Barry Lyndon" by candlelight in 1975, something that had never been done before in color. The way he did it comes down to a chain of decisions, most of them driven by hard numbers about how much light a film camera actually needs.
For my latest film, The Love Nest, I opted to shoot using the Blackmagic Design URSA Cine 12K LF. Here's a little of what went into the decision, as well as some of the results.
The Sony FS100 records 1080p to 8-bit files, has no built-in ND filters, and is well over a decade old, yet plenty of filmmakers relied on it for documentaries and corporate interviews. Cheap used cinema cameras like it raise a fair question about how much of a good image comes from the camera and how much comes from the person running it.
Open gate recording, in-body stabilization, and anamorphic desqueeze have become the most requested features on compact cinema cameras, and the Sony FX5 is the first Sony to offer all three in one body. Whether those features can run at the same time affects how you rig, monitor, and shoot, especially if you work handheld with anamorphic glass.
Small cameras are no longer only a compromise. For interviews with people who are not used to being filmed, a two- or three-camera pocket setup can reduce the visible footprint of production while still giving the editor real multicam coverage. The question is whether that can also help the person in front of the camera behave more naturally.
When you pick a camera system for video, you're also picking a lens mount, a color pipeline, and the answer you'll give every time a producer asks what you shoot on. Canon, Sony, Nikon, and Panasonic Lumix all make capable full frame mirrorless bodies, so the choice comes down to how each one holds up on paid jobs and what it costs you over the years.
A 28mm lens sits in an awkward spot between the 24mm and 35mm primes most people already own, and that in-between position is what makes it useful when you film yourself in a small room.
Nikon now owns RED, and the first camera to come out of that deal is the Nikon ZR, a compact body that records RED's raw codec for a little over $2,000. If you shoot video for clients or your own films, that pairing puts a codec once tied to cinema camera budgets inside a body small enough to balance on a basic gimbal.
Picking a camera system for video locks you into a mount, a lens lineup, and a manufacturer's release schedule for years, and the features a brand ships early tend to shape how you work long after the purchase. Panasonic's Lumix bodies rarely dominate filmmaking gear talk, even though several capabilities now drawing attention elsewhere have lived inside them for a long time.
Viltrox's EVO series offers three matched prime lenses for just over $1,000, about what a single first-party prime can cost. If you shoot video on a gimbal or pack light for travel, a set that shares size, weight, and filter thread can save more time than an extra stop of light.
Canon and Nikon shooters have had autofocus 85mm f/1.2 lenses for years, while anyone on Sony E-mount or L-mount has had to settle for f/1.4 or give up autofocus entirely. The new Sigma 85mm f/1.2 DG Art changes that, and it asks a fair question of anyone who already owns a good f/1.4 portrait lens.
Canon now sells two compact full frame video cameras built around the same 32.5-megapixel 7K sensor, and $1,200 to $1,400 separates them, depending on whether the C50 is on sale. When the image coming off that sensor is nearly identical, your decision rests on heat, audio, stabilization, and how each camera behaves on an actual job.
Today, let’s have a look at the pint-sized Sirui VP-1 Vision Prime 15mm T1.6.
You can name every shot type, from a medium close-up to an over-the-shoulder, and still freeze when it's time to decide where the camera actually goes. That hesitation is often what keeps a small weekend project stuck as an idea instead of a finished film.
Nikon has announced the Z5IIC, a smaller, viewfinder-less version of its Z5II full frame mirrorless camera built around the rear screen, available for preorder now at $1,399.95 body only and shipping in mid-October.
Four days ago I put out a very nerdy video about the variable aperture lens in the new iPhone 18 Pro, and it has since become the most watched thing I have made all year. I did not see that coming. What I really did not see coming was the comment section.
An ultra wide full frame prime that weighs just 142 g and stays sharp wide open is a rare find, and the Lumix 20mm f/2.5 pulls it off. If you shoot travel, vlog, or simply want a kit that doesn't weigh you down, a lens this compact changes what fits in your bag.
Today, I wanted to take a break from discussing the cameras that capture our images and look at one of the tools used to make those images better. Let’s have a look at the Peak Design Travel Tripod.
A 1-inch, 50-megapixel sensor, 8K open gate, and slow motion running past 900 frames per second sit on one side. A smaller sensor, a faster lens, and a $260 lower price sit on the other. That gap is the whole story, and deciding which camera wins depends less on the spec sheet than you'd expect.
A 360 camera bolted to a 249 g drone changes how you fly, because you stop fighting the camera and the flight path at the same time. That single shift is what makes the Antigravity A1 worth a serious look, and it explains why one creator kept reaching for it long after the video was supposed to be finished.
For some Nikon ZR users, Christmas will come a little early this year as Nikon has laid out a clear roadmap for its upcoming firmware updates in 2026 and beyond.
A few months ago, Nikon teased that its journey into cinema products would extend beyond camera bodies into the realm of lenses. Well, today, we learned a bit more about what shape those optics will take.
A massive price drop across its line of cinema cameras allows Blackmagic Design to, once again, offer excellent value to filmmakers on a budget.
The Toronto Blue Jays posted an animated short on Tuesday and spent the afternoon telling fans it was not made with AI. Pull the video down and step through it frame by frame, and the props on a stationary wheelbarrow respell themselves four times in under a second.
An action camera with a Micro Four Thirds lens mount is not something you see every day, and the GoPro Mission 1 Pro ILS puts one in your hands for $699. Interchangeable glass, 8K OpenGate, and a 1-inch sensor in a body this small opens up options that a fixed-lens action camera can't touch.
Most science fiction hides its world in shadow and grime, but The Fifth Element did the opposite and turned the lights on. That single decision, made by director Luc Besson, shaped a bright, colorful, chaotic future that still holds up decades after release.
The Lumix S9 packs 6K open gate full frame recording into a body small enough to disappear in one hand. That combination of size and capability keeps pulling street shooters and hybrid creators toward it, even as newer bodies pile up on the market.
Many photographers have felt the need to produce content in order to become more visible online and, consequently, to more potential clients. If you haven’t tried using a 360 camera, it can be the easiest solution for capturing behind-the-scenes footage.
It’s that time again to sit back and dream about a one-size-fits-all camera that doesn’t actually exist, but really should.
Walking into a wedding as the only person handling both photo and video is a gamble that hinges entirely on the light waiting for you. The decision to add a highlight film wasn't made in advance; it was made on arrival, after the conditions turned out to be forgiving enough to pull it off.
The FX2 has been one of Sony’s most discussed cameras since its launch. So today, I got my hands on one and decided to take it for a spin.
The softest, most usable light in a room often comes from the simplest move: pointing a single fixture at a white wall and turning it all the way up. Get this foundation right and the rest of your lighting becomes a matter of small refinements rather than a fight against the space.
A new free channel on Roku plays AI-generated movies, shows, and shorts around the clock, with AI-generated ads slotted between them. It is called Fairground AI Creator TV, and it runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
I’ve done separate review articles on both the Nikon ZR and the Laowa Sunlight 2x Full Frame Anamorphic Zooms in the past. Today, I thought it might be helpful to talk less specs and more process after using the combination on my latest film.
Canon has been busy lately, producing a variety of cameras aimed at satisfying a wide array of users. But which one is right for you?
Two years with a lens and never a word about it, until now. The Sony FE 24-105mm f/4 rarely earns a spotlight, and that silence says more about camera culture than it does about the lens.
For the last couple of months, I’ve been trying out the Nikon 28-135mm PZ lens to see how it might fit into my workflow. Here’s what I found.
Traditionally, shooting with an anamorphic lens has always come with its set of hurdles. While having the cinematic squeeze is nice, battling with the size and weight can be rather unpleasant. Not to mention the need for diopters just to reach a decent close-focus distance.
The Vision Prime 1 (VP-1) series full frame cine lenses were originally launched by Sirui back in February 2025, with the first batch of lenses covering all the mid-range focal lengths: the 24mm T1.4, 35mm T1.4, and 50mm T1.4.
Sony has announced the FX5, a full frame Cinema Line camera built around a newly developed image sensor, with Open Gate shooting and internal raw recording that mark firsts for the FX series.
Rejoice, all Nikon ZR users. Today, I’ll give you the inside scoop on a low-cost app that might just be the answer to your prayers.
"Adolescence" pulled off something most productions only pretend to do: four episodes, each filmed as a single continuous take, no stitched cuts hiding in the shadows. The internet split over whether the show cheated, and the answer sits right in the gear the crew chose to carry.
Pull focus on a video clip from a near subject to a far one and watch the edges of the frame. On many lenses, the image seems to subtly zoom in or out as the focus shifts, as if the lens is quietly inhaling and exhaling. That is focus breathing, and once you have noticed it you cannot unsee it. For photographers it is usually a footnote.
Today I'll have a look at an exciting new lens option for filmmakers, the Zhongyi Zone T1 cinema lens.
The Nikon ZR is built around the Nikon and RED collaboration, and on paper it looks like a specialist tool most people would pass on. But Matt Day's hands-on experience with it over several weeks raises real questions about whether it punches above its weight, even for everyday use.
Recently I got to go hands-on with the all-new Canon C50 for a couple of projects, and ultimately I wanted to see if this could be the right compact cinema video camera, delivering high-quality video up to 7K that would work not only for content creation and brand videos but also for some indie filmmaking projects.
New AI software can now create incredibly accurate video from still images, and the Real Estate video market is about to change forever.
Most of us know that shooting in a flat log picture profile will give you the highest quality video footage but the workflow has always been too difficult to deal with. I've created Fstoppers' LUTs for Sony cameras and a shooting and editing workflow that changes everything.
While overhyping new filmmaking and photography products is something of a spectator sport and phrases like "game changer" seem to be bandied about on a daily basis, it can sometimes come as a surprise which products actually move the needle.
Today, I'll have a quick look at the new Allen Smart Suction Snap Camera Mount. It's a tool designed for mounting compact mirrorless cameras, action cams, and smaller DSLRs to smooth surfaces via a suction cup that can deliver dynamic moving shots.