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Good to know, thanks. All of my Nikon lenses are non-ai/ai/ai-s but I did see that the special edition of the 50mm 1.8G is available refurbished from Nikon for $199... so that's kind of interesting. Of course the 40mm f/2 Z is only a little more, so it'd be a little redundant. Either way, it's good to know that option is available. Do you know if the EF adapters for Canon R cameras have the same level of consistency as the Nikon adapter does? Also are there good portrait, AF-S G lenses that are relatively inexpensive but still good lenses... say 85-105mm?

Thanks for the reply. It looks like I'll probably go Nikon or Canon, but if I was thinking about this at this point last year, the FX30 and possibly an a7c2 would definitely be in the running. I love the output from the FX30 but the media and the price isn't worth it to me. If the FX30 was $1200 or less, it would be a contender. As far as the BM 6K FF... just not a fan of BM cameras for what I do.

Being a Canon fan over the years, obviously I drooled over the R5 since it was released, especially after the overheating got sorted out (thanks to the fine folks on eosHD) but it was waaaay over the reality of my life. Since my interest was once removed, I'm a little unsure of the specs but believe that the 4K raw is cropped, not downsampled, right? 8K is complete overkill for what I do... in some ways as I started thinking about this, I've gone back and forth that the 1080p raw on my 5D3 is probably plenty good enough for the short films I don't finish (HA) so 8K is just perverse for me. Unless I misunderstood your first sentence here... I believe the Nikon ZR does have IBIS? My real concern with the ZR is the 4K R3D crop in 4K. I'm sure I can live with S35 crop for video or maybe the 6K is soooo good that I will get over my analogesque snobbery. But the Komodo suggestion is tempting... another camera I have drooled over. Z8 is also a dream camera... basically any camera with internal raw and IBIS is a dream camera for me, so the Z6iii fits into that equation as well. Shit... just checked BH... the Z6iii is on sale brand new for $1999... Hmm... that complicates things a little. Not interested in BM products. Thanks for all of the suggestions, a lot to think about.

Getting good affordable 960p would be cool for lots of people. I see the science explainer channels showing bad quality 960p and the richer channels with Chronos setups. Don't get me wrong about them not being cameras that appeal to a large number of people. They're very good for getting the new "EVERYTHING IS AWESOME AND WIDE AND SMOOTH AND DEFINITELY SHARP SHARP SHARP!!!!" style of video that looks more like video than anything ever made before, but as soon as they say it's a cinema camera, there are 27 things they have to change from every other model ever made, and to bet they'll get every single one of them right is a very long shot indeed.

I would say that Z mount would be the way to go. It can adapt everything you’ve got in your lens collection to be near native. Not just your AF EF and F mount but with the TechArt you can have AF of all your manual lenses as well. If you can stretch to a used Z8 then that would close the argument on every aspect and would be a - if not THE -forever camera. I say this as someone who has still failed to buy one for the past three years despite it being THAT camera to me. But I’m going to London this weekend and you know what, I might well end up feeling saucy and doing a Wayne Campbell…

If you do decide to go with Nikon the FTZII adaptor works very well with F mount AF-S lenses and the resulting auto focus speed is very close to z mount.AF-S lenses are easy to get second hand and far cheaper than the new lenses in Z mount .My AF-S 35mm f1.8 was only Aus $200 second hand and to purchase new in Z mount is around Aus $1000.

This guy in France Shikijo Petroski claims to have modified the Viltrox adaptor to work on a Nikon ZR.He has a lot of videos on Vimeo.

In a word, something I'd find useful to see (now with AF, BTW ; ) from their hands: IBIS.

Yes, Z8 is a temptation. And now ZR... : ) However in my case, the Blackmagic 6K FF and the FX30 are both in a league of their own.

Slowmo modes are actually OOAK for this price range — 9600 pictures in 10 seconds burst of 1080p is something indeed: more than 6 minutes and a half going with 24p, oh well... To this day, it’s still the fastest camera sale I’ve ever made, though. Just look at the number of subscribers on their official YouTube channel. These are numbers and facts. +46.71% (+0.36) in the past 5 days...

For sub-$2,500, a used EOS R5 ticks a lot of your boxes, I think. Afraid of overheating and want longer takes? R5C is right at the top of your price range, but would be doable. If you're willing to compromise on IBIS for the Nikon ZR and if you're willing to bypass stills, a used OG Komodo is just in the $2,500 price range. If you already have some stuff around for rigging up a cinema camera, you'd be able to use it pretty cheaply after that. If not, you'd probably be in a few hundred bucks more and out f your price range. The Komodo does have a built-in gyro, though, so it can be stabilized. Otherwise, the ZR seems to be a fantastic choice. A used Nikon Z8 would be just out of your price range, but would also be a really solid choice. A used Z6 III would do you really well too. Price is about the same as a brand new ZR. lensrentals.com has a used BMCC 6K for under $2,500 as well. It's a sensor from 2018, but you can get good results and nowadays, it has surprisingly good autofocus. No IBIS, though.

Hey thanks for the reply. More than likely yes, but only one prime to start out with. For instance, with the Nikon or Sony, I would go with their 40mm prime. With Canon, probably the 35mm or that new 45mm.

Well WTF - turns out "1 inch sensor" is marketing BS and it's actually 13.2mm wide, making the crop factor 2.73x, and only just a touch larger than Super 16 which is 2.88x. Source Lots of MFT glass and also lots of c-mount options too as already suggested. Ironically, with the lack of electronic contacts you can't control the aperture on most modern MFT lenses, so much of the sharpest glass will be unavailable (making the 8K sensor spec rather redundant!). However getting shallow DOF will probably be more difficult, especially as we have no idea what kind of focus assists it will have, so stopping down might be the best move (focus wide open then stop down to eliminate any slight errors) and that will sharpen up older / lesser lenses. This might end up being the mythical tiny S16 cinema beast that people have wanted (or said they wanted!). It's much smaller than even the BMMCC and that's before you realise the BMMCC doesn't have a screen so you have to rig it up to use it. I am still skeptical though - there's lots of stuff we still don't know about and given GoPros history I have complete faith that they'll include at least one fundamental fatal flaw that will prevent this.

Hi Mercer are you intending to purchase auto focus lenses as part of the equation ?

Hello all, settle in for a long post... For the past 10 years I have mostly shot with my Canon 5D Mark iii with ML Raw. Other than a couple short stints with some native lenses, the only one I kept was a beat up 28mm 1.8 because it was cheap and I really like the rendering. I also have a Sigma FP which delivers a fine raw image but I've always found it to be an awkward camera to work with... especially with its horrific battery life and annoying SSD tethered to the camera. For the past year I've been using a GH6 a lot I bought on the cheap. It has the Arri LogC update, and I've been fairly happy with it except for my normal distaste for crop factors... although I have found the cheap 7artisans 24mm 1.4 lens to be a treat. For the most part, I think the GH6 could be the ultimate low budget filmmaker's camera. The LogC curve/color science mixed with 4K/5.7K ProRes HQ codec truly is remarkable... not to mention the IBIS which is nothing short of miraculous. Even the 1080p, with its small ProRes file sizes looks pretty amazing to me. Otherwise, I borrowed a friend's Canon R7 for a few weeks and found it to be a pretty amazing little camera. The h.265 files were way better than I thought they'd be. The cLog2 was a treat to grade, the AF was practically perfect and the IBIS was better than I expected. Since the pandemic, I've gotten into shooting stills a little. I first started with film and loved it. I still shoot some, but they're a little expensive since I don't have the capability to process/scan them myself. I then picked up an Open Box Pentax K10D which I enjoy taking out and getting some random shots with the beautiful CCD sensor, but video is more important to me than stills and I don't want to maintain multiple systems so I am thinking of starting over and investing in a new camera and a lens or two... So... I was looking for some advice from anyone who has first hand knowledge about a few different systems. My criteria for stills is basically nothing... shoots decent stills. For video, I'm looking for a full frame camera that shoots internal raw video, or ProRes, has decent IBIS and decent AF. I'm a few months away from a purchase, but I'd like to keep it below $2500 for the main camera and then possibly pick up a second, lesser model, camera in a year or so. Right now, it seems like Canon or Nikon are the two obvious options, but after reading Andrew's mini review of the FX2, I'd be open to going Sony as well even though there's no internal raw. I have ruled out Panasonic and the L Mount. I have extensively used an S5iiX and have meh feelings about it. I just didn't jive with it. I'm kinda leaning towards Nikon due to the ZR, but it doesn't seem like the best hybrid camera. But in a lot of ways, it's kinda my dream camera... even though I think 6K is a bit of overkill. I'm also interested in the Z5ii because it seems like it gets me a good bit of my list and gets me into the Z ecosystem for a fairly decent price. But since I started shooting video with a ZR65, I've always gone back to Canon and have always been relatively happy about it. And finally, although lenses are important for stills and those times I'd like to track an actor in a short film or something, I'd probably use my vintage lenses more often. Anyway, I know this is a lot, but any insight you guys might have would be much appreciated.

Think it’s a 1 inch sensor so it’s likely to be 2.7x

None are shown on any pictures. Luckily, there are about a bazillion lenses that can be adapted to Micro 4/3 mount - including a lot of C-mount lenses and probably at least some D mount lenses will cover or work in a cropped mode. 'The same 50MP 1" sensor as..."

Genius.

Is there really no electronics on the lens mount? That's a bit of a shame. Is there any info on crop factor, as I understand it's not an MFT sensor, only MFT mount.

Looks interesting with an MFT mount and the claim the Hypersmooth works with any rectilinear prime (their stabilisation is a pretty important feature, especially with how small they are). Of course, if they don't have animal eye-detect PDAF then the internet will skin them alive!!

Broadcast/live streaming is where the money is right now. There are so many mirrorless camera options that releasing another affordable cine camera probably doesn't make sense right now, especially if they don't significantly improve upon what BMD already has out there. I feel like the lower end cine market in general has retracted a lot. We're a long ways from when ZCam and BMD were regularly releasing different variations of the same camera, and both are more focused it seems on broadcasting than filmmaking right now. It's not just sports broadcasters buying this stuff, but churches, schools, governments, hospitals, non-profits, concert venues, etc. too. One of the biggest concert venues in my state now has a live production set up to encourage bands to film their shows for release there. It has hurt local freelancers who used to film concerts there for bands. Zoom during the pandemic really ushered in the era, but in the years since the needs/wants for these folks has grown and a company like BMD has done a great job in capitalizing.

The Z Cam E2-F6 does open gate 12 bit raw by HDMI to external recorders in 3:2 open gate IIRC. It uses the same IMX410 sensor from 2018 - which was about when that camera was released. The X-H2S also does 3:2 open gate 12-bit raw over HDMI, though it isn't full frame. Heck, even the X-M5 which costs like $900 brand new can do 3:2 open gate 12-bit raw over HDMI - again, not full frame, but given the existence of high-quality focal reducers, beautiful vintage glass made for S35, and beautiful Fujinon glass, I'm not really sure that matters too much. The Canon R6 III does full frame 3:2 open gate raw and costs less than Pyxis. The Canon C50 barely costs more (and is about equal if you buy a Pyxis monitor to fix the side screen ergonomics problem) and has full frame 3:2 open gate raw. Also, I'm pretty sure the S1 II and GH7 support open gate (3:2 and 4:3 respectively) in ProRes RAW for internal recording. I can't remember if the S1R II or the S1 IIe or whatever the "lite" version is called do. The S1 II is a bit cheaper than the Pyxis and doesn't have the poor ergonomics of a non-moveable screen stuck on the left side of the camera - and I'm pretty sure it's also using a newer sensor. And back to S35, a used Pyxis and a used OG Komodo are pretty close to the same price now. Of course, open gate on the Komodo is 17:9 so it's not a dream camera for people trying to double-frame for single take social media stuff, but it is also a global shutter and at least claims to be using a 16-bit raw codec (some users believe OG Komodo is only sampling 12-bit data from the sensor - FWIW, dynamic range seems pretty similar to what I remember from my E2-F6 which was IMX410 so it's probably similar to Pyxis 6K). And FWIW, in terms of "the user experience," I'd gladly take the ergonomics of the tilty screen of my GFX 100 II shooting video (which means, probably any of the Fuji APS-C cameras too) over trying to navigate menus on a touchscreen on the side of my camera, especially if on a high hat or similar. I've considered Pyxis 12K despite the ergonomics problems (partially mitigated by Pyxis monitor), but for the price, the C80 with internal ND and triple native ISO becomes a lot more tempting to me.

Zine homepage has had a major update Big news for the ZR community. When we launched on TestFlight on March 30th, ZineControl was already a powerful tool. Then on March 31st, Nikon officially released the ZR SoftwareDeveloperKit — and everything changed. Most of the known beta issues are now resolved, and the app has taken a serious leap forward. But that's not all. We shared the project with the team at Accsoon, and they loved it. Accsoon is now officially collaborating with ZineControl. That means full SeeMo integration — convert your ZR's HDMI output to USB-C and get ultra low latency monitoring directly inside the app. No compromise. No workarounds. What's new in this update: Touch Focus — Pull focus directly from the app screen. Tap where you want to focus, done. Accsoon SeeMo integration — Real-time HDMI monitoring via USB-C with near-zero latency. Switch between wired and wireless without dropping the signal. Slow Motion quick access buttons — One tap to set your ZR into slow motion mode. One tap to go back. Fully automatic. Aperture control — Full iris control now available directly from the UI.

Only up to A7S Mark II unfortunately https://github.com/ma1co/OpenMemories-Framework/blob/master/docs/Cameras.md Where there's a will there's a way!

Region unlocking for the cheap Japanese versions would be welcome . Not sure open memories tweak supports the newer models. https://github.com/ma1co/OpenMemories-Tweak?tab=readme-ov-file