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In the interview he says they are not shooting in 17K ( at 3.4 mins) its about the sensor size and focal length and resulting look.

He's a very interesting director that's for sure

Which 17K displays will HBO customers be watching this on?

That’s a lot of the (my) reason for sure and because you need to often be right up in people’s grills, and then there is the distortion and massive hands… 18mm on full-frame is the widest I have and go for all of these reasons plus, I just don’t like the look. Never have. But when used for ‘artistic purposes’, ie, ‘intent’ that is a whole other thing.

Sure, slow zone focusing lenses are definitely a possibility. I used that exact lens for part of my YouTube review of the Z Cam E2c if I remember right, pushing the compact-ness of the body/setup. It's a potato, but it's alright in the context of "it's a body cap you can use to make photos." You could also go the route of MS Optics-style designs. I have their 21/4.5 triplet and there are most definitely compromises to get it as small as it is, but it's also a really fun lens with better quality than the Olympus cap (and full frame-ish coverage). A design like that one or their 24/4, but stopped down to f/8 could be interesting. Indeed - and I don't think they've said that the images are SOOC. It's hard to know how much editing was done with the moon shot. It's also not out of the question that an auxiliary lens was used to make it more telephoto. This is the importance of waiting until devices are in the hand of real consumers before getting too hyped. There aren't many things that I'll preorder and the number gets smaller every year, getting replaced by the number of things that I'll wait are available used for at least a 20-30% discount. X-M5 for $900? Shrug. X-M5 for $824-874 on mpb? Get bent, mpb. X-M5 for $781 on adorama? Starting to move in the right direction... Yes. And the close-up stuff could, theoretically, be done with some of the nicer existing action cameras with a diopter.

Could do, I guess there are options. One thing that comes to mind for the vlogger crowd is having a small manual focus that goes between two useful focal distances, like vlogging distance and normal infinity focus. This is how the Olympus 15mm F8 MFT pancake lens works, and it's surprisingly functional. It sort of sits in that middle-ground where you need to adjust focus because you can't get 30cm to infinity in focus at the same time (like a normal GoPro), but the DOF is still deep enough that you don't really need to have much control over it. In practice it's sort of like a switch where you're either at one end or the other. Looking at those GoPro sample shots, both the shallow DOF shots are relatively macro, so that doesn't need a large sensor or super-fast lens, but the moon shot might actually be the more difficult one requiring both a long focal length and also a larger aperture to get enough light. I don't really do astro-photography but the moon is approaching higher-ISOs I would imagine. Seriously though, there are probably 5-year-old android phones that could replicate both those images, so I'd suggest that most of what we're seeing is the hype and that GoPro shares the same definition of cinema that most YouTubers do.

Oh yeah, they absolutely do. And as the article you linked said, they look like optical shallow DOF instead of simulated! Another possibility is that they release two versions, one with a small sensor for the traditional action sports use case - and one with a bigger sensor for the vlogger crowd. If they DID release something like the Z Cam E1, but with a modern SOC supporting 10-bit, a flat profile, and a decent H.265 implementation, I'd be excited for a GoPro for the first time in years.

All true, but the sample images from the promo video all have shallow DOF, so that means another kettle of fish entirely with AF and/or focus guides (peaking etc). I'd question if it might have lidar rather than PDAF etc, but it's a GoPro, so let's just assume it's 95% marketing and only 5% actual specs, like almost everything else about their cameras (no proper log profile, barely-passable bitrates, etc).

If the sensor is getting that big, focus is going to be a problem. On 1" sensor action cameras with a fixed focus range, there's already a problem where manufacturers need to choose whether to optimize for the 2-4' range when someone is filming themselves or the 8'+ range matching traditional action camera usage. I think they all optimize for the longer range and sell you a diopter if you want to self-film. Users don't seem to love using diopters. So if they're bigger than MFT, they're going to need autofocus or a whole series of lenses with preset focus distance and (probably) slow apertures to keep DOF usable. Autofocus is problematic for a camera that has associated itself with action sports. The mechanism would need to be able to take a pretty gnarly crash at speed, but also even if the AF is great, people are accustomed to deep DOF from them - will they be unhappy when their footage of their buddy doing some crazy move is trashed because the camera decided to focus, instead, on a passer-by? Preset focus distance lenses are less of a concern for reliability since they're pretty similar to the diopters currently used, but they do have the problem that the user needs to start recording with a pretty good idea of their focal distance and they also need, necessarily, to be pretty slow lenses so that the user will stay in focus while moving/talking at a distance of 2-4'. If I were GoPro, I'd be way more likely to follow the approach of phones - use a second sensor to build a depth map and allow setting focus in post. That said, a camera that small with such a big sensor and, ideally, swappable lenses, would be a dream for me. 😅

YM Cinema did an analysis of it: https://ymcinema.com/2026/03/18/gopro-next-gen-large-sensor-action-camera/ This image shows the sensor.. If we assume it's the same size as a normal GoPro (at around 70mm) then that looks like the sensor is about 20mm across, which is a crop factor of about 1.8, so very slightly larger than MFT. If the camera body is larger then it looks somewhere between MFT and APSC. Based on how far Apple has pushed its sensors with Apple Log and how far things like the GH7 etc are, there's the potential for genuine image quality. What there won't be however, is the potential for GoPro to go "oh, we'll just provide an adapter for you to mount any other manufacturers lenses on this bad boy!" and not cash in by providing an entire line of overpriced lenses to keep you locked in their 'ecosystem'.

It reminds me of how the people that do rug cleaning videos name their cleaning equipment. My favourite is this:

Wides are a completely different thing depending on the circumstances. If you're hand-holding and moving around for video it's a completely different beast than doing stills or doing video but on a tripod with very careful camera placement and subject movement etc. I also think it's pretty difficult to make wide angle lenses look professional - that demo from ARRI showcasing their ultra-wide zoom had more "amateur with an action camera" vibes than a shallow-DOF 85mm portrait shot from the standard video mode on a 5DII. This is the elephant in the room for amateurs - the pros choose equipment in support of the vision of the project whereas amateurs choose an aesthetic and then use it for completely inappropriate projects.

Not a very good interview but the short and curly of it is The URSA Cine 17K 65 retails for approximately US$29,995. In contrast, the Arri Alexa 65 is unavailable for purchase and must be rented, with high-end productions often spending hundreds of thousands on camera packages.

Very refreshing to see a movie made in a way that abandoned established norms.Having learnt the hard way how difficult it is to use a 19mm for landscape stills I couldn't help but notice "many of the ultra wide shots in poor things have no foreground compared to a still shot in landscape photography". The lens seems to be used to help create a surrealist world. Yorgos film "The Favourite" is a damn good film as well.

It sounds like an off-Road vacuum cleaner.

Enjoyed the movie and in this instance, the use of the extreme wide angle lenses, but generally dislike using wide myself and anything under around 30mm is pretty extreme for me. Or maybe I should consider making a Poor Things style wedding video as a new trend to take over from the Wes Anderson one…

Do I need to use a VPN and a private tab to Google ‘Hardcore Henry’?

Maybe not a big film, but Hardcore Henry was filmed on GoPros and received a wide release.

Poor Things Behind the Scenes 14 minutes -many spoilers

Sweet, thanks Andrew

Yep Z-LOG works with the Z50

Hey folks Looking into acquiring a Z50 ,but couldn't find an answer as to whether Z-log applies to the Z50. Wonder if anyone here besides ( or including) Andrew has had a go at creating one? Cheers and thanks for all the very helpful advice provided over the past few years!

I'm making films with it. I was recently offered enough for an upcoming feature that it would more than pay for the camera, but it would have also been like half their budget. I suggested a percentage instead - which will almost certainly yield less money, but allow that money to be spent to improve the parts of the film which are more important than my camera, which is most of them. 😅 Just footage in general? The most recent couple of shorts on my YouTube channel (https://youtube.com/eatstoomuchjam) were with the UC12K. Otherwise, most of what I've shot is in short films that are still in festival rotation. Between the UC12K and the GFX 100 II, I'm happy enough with both. If I'm on set, I'm most likely to bring the Ursa, Ronin 4D, R5, and Pocket 3. If I'm taking photos or traveling, the GFX or R5, maybe with the Pocket 3. If I need to travel lighter or be more inconspicuous, the Komodo-X and/or Komodo, probably with the Pocket 3. I'm thinking about taking the train to Chicago to do a 48 in a couple of weeks. If I do, I'll most likely bring the Komodo-X and Pocket 3 with my DJI Mini 3 Pro - that's an entire shooting setup that easily can fit in a backpack, more or less - and with EF lenses, I can use the Canon VND adapter when outside and the Canon focal reducer when inside.

I'm back from Guangzhou China, and starting to evaluate the footage, especially my modified Takumar 50mm F1.4 with the custom "insert" made from post-it notes and sticky tape. I managed to get out and shoot with it on a couple of nights. One in Beijing Road and the other in Yong Qing Fang. Some images from Beijing Road... these are all wide open, and lightly graded with Resolve and Film Look Creator. Overall, I'm really liking the aesthetic, which reminds me of mid-budget Hong Kong cinema, which I have a soft spot for. I mostly exposed to protect the highlights and then adjusted exposure in post under the FLC, and the GH7 has just enough DR for this, despite the scenes being quite challenging. The lens has a shallow enough DOF to be able to direct the viewers attention by choosing what is in focus, and the FOV (equivalent to a 71mm F2.0 on FF) is great for these type of scenes where the scenes would mostly overwhelm a wide lens with pure chaos. Some images from Yong Qing Fang.. same as above but with a touch of sharpening. This was a lot darker and I needed to push the ISO to get more levels in some scenes. It was also a lot higher DR, so some shots will be limited in post for how I grade them and I'll probably reach for NR in places. The lens is actually quite sharp in the middle, but the sides are more distortion than I'd like with quite a bit of bokeh distortion and coma from bright sources. The experiment with this "insert" was how strong a look it would be and I think it's probably too strong because the bokeh shapes are too distracting due to the sharp corners. It's distracting on frames with a clear subject (where you want the background to get out of the way) and on other shots its pure chaos and completely negates the idea of directing where the viewer will look. Getting DOF this shallow on MFT isn't easy, so I'll have to think about it more for future trips.