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When we have things as portable as this with OCuLink possibility, as often as today at the range of your click and as never before: https://onexplayerstore.com/products/onexplayer-x1-pro-amd-ryzen™-ai-9-hx-370-10-95-3-in-1-redefining-handheld-gaming-device

Lets acknowledge that ProResRAW is a shitty codec.

Didn’t the ZR have a setting for H.265 NR in the menus? Could it be be that on pre production models it is set to stonger setting than on other Z bodies. To my eye H.265 on Z6iii is good, better than S5ii’s 4:2:0. Thought about Z8 too, but according to Cinematools Z8’s 4k120p has worse quality than Z6iii’s in DX mode, and I find the ability to crop 1.5x quite handy. Z8’s 4k 2.3x would need changing some of my lenses to wider ones. Played more with NEV to R3D trick, and still prefer Nikon colours and Raw controls to Red. In addition R3D Media management in Resolve does not work, it does not export trimmed clips. If you trim the NEV clips and export, NEV to R3D trick does not work any more. Usually fill a 2TB card in one day, so working trim is a must to save only the important parts. Tried ProresRaw too and file sizes are just huge and Raw controls not so good. With NRaw I can color correct basicly from the Raw panel quickly.

I think if you are using h265, you are going to use the full 6k resolution anyway. What I was saying is in RAW, you can half the data if you go from 6k to 4k. It is a compromise, but for me 4k native is already very good. I don't need more resolution. The only thing that would be really practical for me, would be to reframe the shot like in an interview setup in the video below. So I can simulate a 3 camera setup with only two cameras, which is so much easier to do.

If I'm not mistaken, the issue is that what Nikon calls extended oversampling is not available on the ZR. Extended oversampling would mean the camera is able to resample the 6K sensor feed to 4K with full sensor width at 50-60 fps. The 24, 25, and 30 fps video is oversampled by default. So the quality from h.254, h.265 and Prores 423 HQ 4K modes should be fine as long as fps rate is 30 or below. These have much lower data rates than 6K RAW. Note that I do not have the ZR. I am just guessing that 24-30 fps 4K are oversampled without extended oversampling as it is the case in the Z8. If they are not oversampled, this could indeed be a major quality issue.

Size comparison site updated their list. ZR vs. FX3 ZR vs. S9 And C50 lol

I have not tested the Nikon ZR, but every Nikon cam that I have used before, from the Z6 to the Z9, H264-H265 have been very very good. You might not get the whole DR etc. but they have been really solid, even the D750 1080p 24mbs has been solid. LOL. Now, one thing I have been doing with my Z9 is use the 4k NRAW, which is only about 350 mb/s at 24 fps and also very good. The ZR also has a 4k NRAW/Redraw mode. Which would bring this type of bitrate. I also hope they also bring a lighter redraw mode. If not, you sill have the NRAW naming hack. Where by renaming NRAW to RED files, it is recognise by resolve as REDraw and process as if it was the same. It seems you can get a better Dynamic range and noise reduction like in the video below, where it even works on Nikon z8 nraw.

This is (for me) the biggest flaw of the camera. As I said, I saw this as a "creator camera" that could be used with caveats as a cinema camera. These people usually have fast turnarounds and having a h265 almost done take is a must - not even counting the massive file sizes of RedRAW. Lots of them never used any RAW video even having cameras that could do it. But probably the H265 encoding would overheat the camera pretty quickly.

Video oriented cameras is always a niche. Especially in this economy and what we see in AI developments. Look at this pretty serious response of a pro video shooter: I predict two years from now many of these folks will just give up. Budgets are already so low that they're bean counting the price of CFe cards they have to buy.

Have not read up with the datarates. What is up with the datarates?

I went into an actual camera shop (remember those?) yesterday and had a chat about the ZR. It is a branch of a reasonably sized chain of stores and I was asking them about if I ordered one would I have a chance of being in the first batch of their deliveries. They had a check on their system and told me how many they had on order and was a bit surprised how few it was (less than double figures) and even more surprised to find out that that figure wasn’t just for their branch but the whole group. Considering that they had pretty much the whole Nikon range on display, it wasn’t even like they aren’t a limited stockist of the brand. So I said, “Oh right, with that few coming I suppose I’d have no chance of getting one for a few batches?” Tap, tap, tap… ”No you’ll be fine as we haven’t got anyone who has pre-ordered one” ”In this branch?” ”No, the whole group”. I was quite taken aback and asked why that was. They said that the general consensus with customers and staff was that it was just a bit of a niche product and of the customers that were interested were all talking about the data rate putting them off. What they also said is that they had had a resurgence of interest in the Z6iii since the ZR was announced. It all likely means little in the overall scheme of things as this is just one retail group but it’s interesting to me how there can be such a gulf in the interest in a product and the reality of people actually buying it. I think that data rate thing is going to be a thing though.

Well, that was fun. New phone has new colour space which requires updating Resolve which wouldn't install and required me to update MacOS. Recording and then viewing the first clip took a lot longer than anticipated. Here's some initial observations as I find my bearings. Resolve 20.2 only has Apple Log 2 in the Colour Space, and only has Apple Log in the Gamma. If we assume that BM and Apply both know what they're doing then that means that Apple Log 2 gets a new colour space but keeps the same gamma curve, and iPhone 15 and 16 users get an upgrade to Apple Log 2. In the default camera app you only get Log and HDR (whatever that is) in Prores mode. Not entirely sure what Prores flavour it is, but I'd guess HQ because the fine print in the settings to enable it says 1 minute of 4K 30p is 6GB which is 800Mbps (and would be 640Mbps for 24p) which is sightly lower than the 700 typically stated, but is definitely higher than the 471Mbps typically stated for 4K 24p Prores 422. If you select Prores and Log, the image displayed is the log image.. no display conversion for you! BM camera app gives tonnes more options. I'll have to investigate that further, but last time I looked it seemed to only offer manual shooting, rather than the auto-everything that I need when shooting fast.

Is it just me or ZR skin tone is more like Arri than RED Komodo X 🤭 2:20 https://youtu.be/MfmajecSwqk

Sounds good! Would love to see some more tests with maybe more telephoto focal lengths to see how the bokeh looks and humans for skin tones and detail without Apples usual computational behavior. Would love to try this out myself at an Apple store but you obviously can’t plug-in an SSD to their tethered display units. I think you can do ProRes in log and then airdrop footage though so I might go check it today. Particularly interested in what log2 brings vs their previous log. I assume better highlight retention, increased DR etc.

iPhones don’t have IBIS, no phone does AFAIK. What it uses is Apple’s sensor shift OIS which means the lens or sensor module physically moves, plus EIS which is electronic crop and warp. In normal video both work together. When you switch to RAW or open gate, EIS is disabled because you are recording the entire sensor with no crop margin for digital stabilization. OIS still works but the footage looks a lot shakier since you are used to EIS doing most of the work. This is pretty standard behavior across cameras that offer RAW or open gate. As for no internal RAW recording, I don’t see it as a major inconvenience considering how quickly you’d fill up your storage (especially if you got the base models). Going SSD is definitely the right move.

Interesting and thanks for sharing. I hadn't heard the RAW was external only, I guess every new camera has its 'gotchas' in terms of combinations of features that do/don't work together. Mine arrived yesterday (Friday), which was a nice surprise as when I preordered it they predicted it wouldn't be delivered until Monday. I got all the notifications etc, so it didn't just rock up with no warning though 🙂 Odd that the sensor stabilisation isn't supported in RAW. Is it IBIS or is it EIS? If it's IBIS then I have no idea why it wouldn't be supported?

Just Resolve’s stabilization for those shots

Beautiful : ) Hard to believe that’s from a phone! How tricky is it to stabilize that kind of footage without in-camera help? What tool are you using exactly?

And here are the raw clips if anyone would like to play around with them https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/17juUhffdIAEu5NJIAvD01zwfPock_mjO?usp=sharing

The phone arrived today as expected and I've had a few minutes to play around with the camera. I shot a short test scene using ProRes RAW and ProRes 422 in the Blackmagic app. Here's a quick look at the footage with just Resolve's Apple Log 2 CST applied. Very first observations: Open gate is only available in RAW or RAW HQ RAW can only recorded to an external drive. I have a great Magsafe SSD that I use for this. Sensor stabilization is not available in either raw mode Resolve is super sluggish with the raw files unlike ProRes RAW or BRAW files from my S1ii. I hope this gets optimized The normal raw controls are there and the footage is very flexible as you'd expect I used Resolve's built in Apple Log 2 CST for the test https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97PPh276M4o

An older comparison between Nikon Z6 III and Sony FX3. Nikon Z6 III has the same sensor as Zr so this comparison is still relevant. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Uz0pJvveoA While in lab tests Z6 III and Zr semi stacked sensors have one stop less of a dynamic range in practice this different is hard to see or notice in most scenes. I wouldn't worry about dynamic range. Once weakness Nikon Z6 III and Zr have and also Z8 is the fact that if you want the best video picture quality you have to shoot in RAW. NLog used in ProRes and x265 internal codecs is not as good as Sony or Panasonic Log profiles. x265 codec is 10bit 4:2:0. Shooting in RAW would require more time and work in post production as de-noise and lens correction have to be done in post. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nyTnnbszZg This is because when de-bayering RED RAW files in resolve and RED software you have this option to reduce chroma noise. Until somebody does a proper test with RED RAW file I think semi stacked sensor in Nikon Zr and Z6 III is still one stop lower than sensor on Sony FX3 for example. As previous tests shows this difference is undetectable in real world shots, it can be measured only in tests Here is how to get rid of the blue channel clipping without renaming files to RED RAW (R3D). Yet renaming the files gives more options and better results, so people will keep doing it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7U-WysxaRw

Maybe next year… Currently on a 13 Pro bought as a refurb a few years back and it’s about the right size for me as I travel a lot and a Mini is too small and Macbook a pain unless I am actually working. The 13 does everything I need it to do but I’d like a better camera or rather more lens options so…

Another super-busy week, but I did manage to create a couple of new music tracks to share with the community...free, as always, to use with attribution, like my thousands of other tracks. They are: On my Sci-Fi 14 page: "MOONLIT CYBER STREETS" https://soundimage.org/sci-fi-14/ On my Positive/Upbeat page: "SHUFFLIN’ AROUND TOWN" https://soundimage.org/positive-upbeat/ PLEASE READ If you can, please consider making small contribution to support my efforts. I honestly hate asking, but I do pay for everything myself including my synthesizers which are very expensive (I make monthly payments) so contributions from the community really help me a lot. Here are some ways you can help: https://soundimage.org/donate/ https://soundimage.org/ogg-game-music-mega-pack/ https://soundimage.org/ogg-music-packs-2/ Anything you can manage will be very helpful...thanks. 🙂

This video is very interesting about the conversion of the Nikon NEV to RED red file. The thing that is the most interesting to me, apart from the blue channel clipping, is about the dynamic range of the camera which he test as from 8.25. I think he has a Z8, if this is true in the highlight, the z9 which has been rated at 8.5-9 stops of latitude in the CineD lab test, could be either a solid 9 (Panasonic S1ii, RED V-RaptorX), or closer to 10, that would be Arri Alexa LF territory!!! I saw someone saying that his Nikon is like a new camera, about the highlight, but also that the chroma noise reduction was also very good. The Nikon Z6iii/ZR, is supposed to be the same sensor than the S1ii, with the only difference is that the Nikon's are at 9.1ms and the Pana is at 12ms. I would dream if nikon could give a slower version mode with the S1ii DR/Latitude. Because most of the time the slower read, creats less noise and thus more DR.

It’s not as risky as it sounds. You’re never pulling the active recording card, only the idle one. The camera is writing to one slot while the second slot is completely free, so you can safely swap it for a fresh card without interrupting the recording. That’s how Canon implements “relay recording” to allow essentially unlimited record times. Of course if you pulled the card that’s actively being written to, you’d corrupt the file, but the workflow is designed to prevent that. It’s not really a new trick on the C50, it’s fairly standard in Canon’s cine line and a reason people trust them on long form shoots. Most hybrids including Canon R line doesn't allow this as they're photo centric and that could cause issues, I'm not even sure this works when in the photo mode of C50.. another benefit of having dual OS systems. On a side note, I hope Nikon includes more RED OS features like traffic light system etc.