ProRes Raw Anamorphic Test: Lumix S5iiX + Blazar Remus

Alternative Title:
The Advice I'd Give My Younger Self

Equipment Used:
Camera - Lumix S5iix - https://amzn.to/46H92sN
Lenses - Blazar Remus Anamorphics, 45mm 65mm 100mm - https://blazarlens.com/remus/
ProRes Raw External Monitor - Atomos Ninja Ultra - https://amzn.to/4djHLil
Vmount Battery - Neewer 99wh Mini Vmount- https://amzn.to/3X1pYa3
Vmount Plate - SmallRig VMount Battery Plate - https://amzn.to/3Ani1Di

Good morning everyone,

It's been quite a while since I've spoken in a video on this channel. Welcome, or welcome back here.

This year has had a lot of things happening all at once, and it feels almost like a strong current is pushing me on a wave. And for all other wedding filmmakers or wedding industry friends, I'm sure you also feel this in some certain way right now.

We are in the thick of wedding season and, although I have so much to edit and so much prepping to do before my next shoot, I really wanted to test my new camera rig setup before bringing it on the job.

I'm using the Lumix S5iix, the Atomos Ninja Ultra, the Blazar Remus anamorphic lens set, and what's super new for me is a v-mount battery that is powering both the Atomos and Lumix. I've wired the D-Tap to power my camera and USB-C to power my external recorder. It is a heavy setup, which is why I wanted to test it in the field before committing to it on a wedding day.

In this video, I'm recording in ProRes Raw, but after editing together these clips, I highly doubt I'll need to shoot in this format for real weddings. It would be awesome to adjust the ISO in post, but the prores raw files are massive. 7 seconds is a full gigabyte of data.

I've tested it out here to determine whether or not I should in fact replace the Atomos Ninja Ultra with a brighter monitor but does not have external recording capabilities. So right now, the trade-off is between external recording vs a more user-friendly monitor. And just to quickly mention here, at time of recording, the Atomos ninja cannot output open-gate in full 6K like the Lumix does internally, and neither does it project open-gate anamorphic using the whole screen, it simply keeps a 3:2 aspect ratio and squishes it even smaller on the screen, effectively making this 5" monitor into 4" or less.

In better news, I can tell you that the Neewer 99wh mini V-Mount battery lasted a full 3 hours, which is how long I was out capturing this footage. I kept the camera and monitor on the whole time, and I believe when I got home just over 3 hours later the v-mount battery was at about 50%.

So I assume, on a wedding day, this 99wh vmount battery can last at least 6 hours. And that's recording ProRes clips. This test is not scientific at all, but if I had to gauge how many v-mount batteries to have in order to power both your camera and external monitor, I'd have to wager at least 2 batteries to last a full day. Granted, this is also under the assumption of recording in prores raw, so if you are just using a monitor without recording, perhaps you could last a full day solely on v-mount power. But I'd have to ask someone who is experienced with that gear to be fully confident in that.

Anyhow, I really just wanted to show these test shots, but after exploring my forest hill area again, I have to say how much I love my home. And perhaps you can take this as encouragement in finding who you are yourself.

There's this question or idea I've been toying with lately and it has to do with the advice I would give myself 10 years ago. 10 years ago I shot my first wedding, and I've been getting similar questions since speaking at different workshops this year.

The advice I would give 10-year-younger self, and for anyone who is wondering if wedding filmmaking or video or media creation is the field to pursue, I'd say to really think about who you are as a person first. Don't try to fit your personality to a supposed market, because a market will follow the leaders, and you can only truly and successfully lead by leaning into who you are.

Do you enjoy partying? How often do you feel lonely? When are you in flow state and most productive? How do you prefer to learn– with your eyes, ears or hands? What annoys you? What don't you need in your life that you see everyone else wanting all the time?

Often we like to believe that comparison is the root of all sadness, and to an extent I agree. But I also understand that my 10-year-younger self didn't quite know who I should be comparing myself with. Comparison is finicky if you tend to compare yourself to people you would not trade lives with, but comparison can be a good benchmark if you know where you want to be.
Compare yourself to your ideal future self.

Make the 10-year-older you proud for the decisions you make today
and the things you give energy
and the things you don't bat an eye to.

If you're wondering if working with a camera is the right path to pursue, ask your future self.

Until next time,
Aaron