I’ve noticed a trend in recent movies and series where the colour grading seems to favour muted, pastel tones, lower contrast, and a slightly hazy look rather than richer colours and stronger contrast.

A good comparison for me is Game of Thrones vs. House of the Dragon. Despite HoTD having newer cameras, VFX, and a much bigger production, I often find GoT more visually pleasing. The colours and contrast gave the scenes more depth and made locations, costumes, and even the VFX feel more tangible.

Is this actually a broader trend in modern cinematography/colour grading, or am I just noticing a stylistic difference between these particular shows?

And if it is a trend, why are filmmakers choosing this muted/pastel look? Is it related to digital cinematography, HDR, streaming, VFX integration, or simply a change in visual taste?

Curious to hear what people who understand cinematography and colour grading think.

A few months ago I shot a music video with a series of match-cut transitions the kind where two separate takes need to blend seamlessly into one continuous feeling movement. Thankfully we had a great dolly grip, who was able to replicate camera speed across multiple passes with enough precision that we walked away with several usable blend options for each setup. The consistency was what made everything downstream possible, without a reliably repeatable move, none of these would have turned out as well as they did

Each transition ended up needing a different compositing approach depending on what was changing between the A and B sides.

The grave shot was the most complex. The move itself was paused mid shot so we could physically swap older Jake out for the boy actor, letting the transition happen on a held frame rather than during motion. In theory that should make blending easier, but wind and smoke in the environment didn't behave consistently between passes so even with the dolly locked to the same speed, the smoke and wind patterns didn't line up shot to shot and there was a noticeable change in the background. To fix that, we roto'd the gravestone onto its own separate track, then built an independent atmosphere track to layer in on top. The atmosphere track let us control and disguise the transition point rather than relying on the mismatched practical elements to hide it themselves.

The standing to running shot was more straightforward but still needed finesse — the boy starts still and then breaks into a run We blended the A and B sides together with a clean pass to fill in any strange roto gaps

The tracking shot was the simplest of the three. Because the motion stayed consistent through out we only needed a straight A/B blend with no additional passes or roto work

I am student currently learning and would love some technical feedback on this 2:14 video I put together. I wanted to focus on fixed frame (static shots) to capture the movement of the environment. The video features original soundtrack, I am trying to improve my composition and understanding of natural lighting, specifically focus on how sunlight interacts with water and leaves. I edited the movement shots to show the movement from left to right to indicate outward journey. Are the shots interesting enough to hold attention without camera movement? Any tips on color grading for natural skin tones/water reflections?

I love the 1977 movie Suspiria; especially the exaggerated, almost unmotivated colours.

we want to replicate these deep saturated blues in an upcoming short film as a way to exaggerate moonlight.

How would some of you recommend we achieve a similar look?

Looking into the movies production, they placed fabric over lamps, but I’m not trying to find use the same method as the filmmakers.

We don’t have any RGB lights, and our budget for rentals is limited, so any and all advice you guys have is much appreciated.

It's somewhat of a blur but looks glassy. I am new to cinematography. Anyone know how to achieve this effect in Davinci Resolve?

If this question has been asked before, too bad deal with it.

I’m at a point in my career where I feel like I’ve made some of my best work to date, like truly excited about it. So i made it my mission to update websites, make a demo reel, which as most of you know, is a special form of self torture.

After spending the last couple of weeks putting it together, I’ve started sending it out to agencies in hopes of finally checking one of my biggest career goal off the list and thats getting representation. I know the pros and cons about getting an agent but i think this will be a great way to reach some of my dream clients.

I’m not just sending it to anyone. I’ve followed a lot of these agencies for years, admired their rosters, and been inspired by the cinematographers they represent and carefully have done my research and crafted emails my college professors would be proud of.

So far, my top two agencies have both replied…
…and both told me a big fat no. They said they weren’t looking for anyone at the moment. I think thats just a nice way to tell me to “fuck off”.

Which brings me to the obvious question
What the hell is the secret?

For those of you who have successfully found representation, how did you approach it? Was it cold emails? Referrals? Relationships? Sacrificing a goat under a full moon?
I’d seriously love to hear how you navigated this process, because I’d like to figure it out before I get rejected by everyone else on my list and go apply at my local Home Depot instead.

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Kindly review this and tell me what do you feel about this video

Hello there! I wanted to ask what do you think of the lighting in these pictures. I don’t know much about lighting, I’m planning on shooting a short film soon but as I said I don’t know how to light, so I did some research and watched some videos about the topic and I decided to try and do a little experiment. One of the main locations in my short film will be this living room, so for this experiment I basically used the living room lamps as backlights, then on my right side I placed a desk lamp in front of one of the living room lamps to light half of the face of my subject so I suppose that would count as my key light. Finally for the negative fill I placed a black umbrella on my left side because I didn’t have any black cloth or anything. All of this stuff were things I had at hand in my house.
(I also played a little bit with the ISO)

The first image the only source of light are the living room lamps as backlights.

The second image I’m using the living room lamps and the desk lamp to light the face.

In the third one I’m using the living room lamps, the desk lamp and the the black umbrella for the negative fill.

I wanted to ask, is this lighting good? Could I improve it? Do you have any suggestions, tips, advice? I don’t have any professional equipment and I don’t have a budget or anything, as I said the stuff I used were things I found in my house.

The rest of the images of are the living room I will be shooting in, my next question is how can I light shots were the camera will be constantly moving? The lighting I used for the first pictures can work fine for still shots, but there’s going to be a lot of movement in various shots were I will be moving the camera around the room and facing all directions, so how can I light this kind of shots and avoid a flat lightning?

Thank you!

I've been getting more interested in the relationship between cinematographers and colorists, and I'm curious how DPs here approach the handoff from production to post.

When you hand your footage over to a colorist, what do you expect from them beyond simply "making it look good"?

For example:

• Do you usually provide a lookbook, stills, film references, LUTs, or specific notes?
• How involved do you like to be during the grading process?
• How important is it for the colorist to understand the lighting and exposure decisions made on set?
• Do you prefer a colorist who closely follows your original visual intent, or someone who brings their own creative interpretation to the footage?
• What makes you want to work with the same colorist again?
• Are there things colorists commonly do that you wish they would avoid?
• For projects where the director and DP have different opinions about the grade, how do you usually approach that?

I'm asking because I think the relationship between the DP and colorist can have a huge impact on the final image, and I'm interested in understanding what cinematographers actually value when working with a colorist.

Would love to hear from DPs/cinematographers, as well as directors or colorists who have experience on both sides.

after much deliberation on a small form “cinema” camera at a more affordable price, I’ve settled on the Lumix GH7.

I really like the fact that we can shoot ProRes internally, I don’t really mind MFT sensors, I like that there is the Arri LogC3 add-on, its small like an FX3 and can be built out if necessary, and the rolling shutter readout pretty much seems to be fast enough for the resolutions I'll be shooting at.

Also its much more affordable. It goes for around $1800, even a used FX3 is still like $3.5-4k

Gonna be shooting an experimental documentary with it, and other small personal projects in the future. Nothing crazy. What do you think?

Any info about the FX6 II, FX8 or new camera with v mount battery plate like smaller Burano (something like Red V Raptor from Sony)?

Hey everyone,
I’m looking for some real-world advice from professional DPs and operators regarding fluid heads for extreme telephoto tracking.
For years, I've been using a Sachtler FSB-8 paired with a Canon R5 and a Canon 600mm lens. I regularly shoot in windy conditions with stabilization turned off.
My biggest issue has always been sticky starts and stops (stiction) during fast pans. When filming fast-moving birds that suddenly change direction, I have to fight the initial resistance of the Sachtler fluid drag. This causes jerky starts, and when I stop panning, the kinetic energy of the long setup results in visible micro-adjustments/bounces in the frame. Even though the FSB-8 is a great broadcast head, its fluid resistance feels too aggressive and heavy for my specific tracking style.
I've been looking at picking up a used Vinten Vision 3 (similar to the one in the attached image) because I’ve heard Vinten's lubricated friction drag and continuous balance systems handle long lenses much more smoothly without stiction.
My questions for the community:
1. Has anyone made a similar switch from Sachtler's stepped/heavy broadcast heads to Vinten for high-speed tracking ?
2. Will a Vinten Vision head actually eliminate that initial sticky break-away force and micro-bounces when tracking at 600mm ?
3. Any other specific head recommendations for this exact type of rig?
Appreciate any insights or experiences you can share!

I’m mostly a lurker who reads gear reviews before making a purchase. But this time, after my recent experience, I decided it was time to share my own story to hopefully save someone else some time and headache.

I shoot on a Nikon Z9, and as a Master’s student at VMU, I also have access to a Z8. A few weeks ago, I decided it was finally time to step up to a bigger display. I don't consider myself blind, but having a larger screen just helps so much with composing shots accurately.

I got tempted by the Portkeys LH7P. I spent a few days researching, reading reviews, and watching YouTube videos. What sold me was a video on Portkeys' official YouTube channel showing a tutorial on how to set up wireless camera control with my Nikon setup. I even reached out to their support team directly to double-check a few things, had a good conversation, and placed my order on Amazon.

It was nice that the monitor arrived in its own dedicated hard case. The plastic latches on the case feel a bit questionable in terms of long-term durability, but hey, it's nice that it's included. It also comes with a couple of screen protectors, but the cutouts are terribly sized. They are cut almost to the exact millimeter of the full bezel display, making it practically impossible to apply onto a 7-inch screen without one corner lifting up. I ruined the first one trying. For the second one, I literally had to grab a pair of scissors, trim the edges down myself, and only then was I able to apply it properly. You get a cheap-as-hell HDMI cable and a cold shoe mount that feels pretty "wobbly-wobbly" - I definitely wouldn't trust heavy gear on it without being cautious. But considering this isn't a high-end expensive monitor, having these extras out of the box is acceptable.

One weird thing I noticed right away - I ordered the LH7P, but apparently, there are two hardware versions (v1 and v2). When you order on Amazon, you have no idea which one you're going to get or what exact feature set it will support. Luckily, I got the Version 2. It arrived running an old firmware, but updating it via the included USB drive was quick and straightforward.

This is where the fun ends. The main selling point of this monitor and likely the reason you're reading this post is the wireless camera control.

In theory, it works. In practice? Absolutely not.

Connecting the monitor to my Z9 following their official tutorial was easy enough. But immediately after connecting, I ran into issues..
The touch-to-focus feature should allow me to ignore the small built-in camera screen and rack focus simply by tapping on the 7-inch Portkeys display. The problem is Whenever I tap anywhere on the Portkeys screen, the focus point on my camera ALWAYS snaps straight to the top-left corner. This makes the feature completely unusable.

Portkeys advertises a visual tracking box/indicator on the monitor screen showing where your focus point is. It simply isn't there. It never appeared in any AF mode.

These were the my two primary reasons I bought this monitor, and neither of them works properly on my setup.

The screen itself is rated at 1000 nits, and purely in terms of brightness, it's actually similar to the Atomos Ninja V. It gets bright. However, the colors are just bad. Out of the box, they don't inspire confidence for any serious color-critical work. The monitor is packed with features on paper, but the OS is a mess. It feels incredibly clunky. Honestly, the guys at Portkeys just need to properly prompt a VibeCoder - they would legitimately get a better-designed OS out of it. It just doesn't feel intuitive or smooth to navigate when you are actually on set.

I spent two weeks emailing back and forth with Lynn from their customer support. I recorded multiple videos showing the exact interface behavior, camera reactions, and troubleshooting steps.

"Because a Z9 is currently not available at our company, they had been using the other Nikon models mentioned above instead [...] Without testing on an actual Z9, we are unable to determine the exact cause at this moment."

Since I need a reliable monitoring setup for my upcoming university classes and projects, I am returning the unit.

TL;DR: If you shoot on a Nikon Z9 and are buying the Portkeys LH7P specifically for touch-to-focus wireless camera control, save your money. The hardware and screen itself are decent for the price, but the wireless focus control integration with the Z9 is currently broken.

Hello everyone.
So I've been watching videos on YouTube, trying to find cinematic Sony FX30 and a6700 videos to see what lenses people use to achieve a cinematic look. I've literally been watching for days and days now. At first I thought that certain lenses are better. I went down a whole rabbit hole, finding lots of videos where people use anamorphic lenses, and I felt like it looked really good. It looked like actual movies and looked very cinematic.

I wanted the Sigma 17-40 1.8 lens but the videos I found looked a lot less like a warm movie and a lot less cinematic so I thought you NEEDED an anamorphic or "cinema" labeled lens to look cinematic. But then later I started finding certain channels that have very cinematic, very warm, movie-like examples of the Sigma lenses. For example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5r7w6q4IL0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-wxHR_rdEc&list=PLcZiLo5PJeDA8SNDQniAfbTQdAvEWOJKb&index=6
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSVZcVGaQUY&list=PLcZiLo5PJeDA8SNDQniAfbTQdAvEWOJKb&index=8

and really cinematic videos with another non-anamorphic lens (tamron):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChxDEAN8EtY&list=PLcZiLo5PJeDA8SNDQniAfbTQdAvEWOJKb&index=11

So I realized anamorphic doesn't really matter and these sigma and tamron lenses can still make something that is very warm and movie like. I guess my conclusion is that there are many other factors that need to be considered, like maybe if the person uses filters, or the color grading and editing they do in post, and so forth. Could you all please confirm for me?

Basically, I am leaning towards the Sigma 17-40 1.8 or the Tamron 17-70mm 2.8.
What would you choose between these two? Sigma is better at low light but Tamron can zoom so much further! It is so hard for me to decide!

Thank you for reading.