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It would be funny if turns out RED and Nikon couldn't push Davinci developers to address the issue with nraw rendering and decided to fix it themselves by a metadata trick.

Are you seriously asking me to explain the thought process of other humans? I'm pretty sure I'm not qualified for that. None of those films were filmed entirely on medium format. Are you suggesting that when you watch them, you're suddenly jolted out of your seat when The Joker switches from Alexa 65 to Alexa LF? Or that you can even tell? Note that at no part of that does Greg Fraser say "I wanted the medium format look." Instead, he's talking about how much he liked the look he got from using lenses designed for smaller formats. It is objectively true that the designers of those lenses never anticipated that the outer edges of the image circle would get used at some point. This seems like a pretty based and objective take and a reason that somebody might choose to use a larger sensor. I like cropping, it has fantastic dynamic range, and some of the first-party lenses for the system (particularly the 110/2, 250/4, and 500/5.6) are among the best lenses I've ever seen. I'll turn this around and ask you these questions: 1) What do you think medium format look is? 2) Is there a FF look vs an S35 look and does a speed booster give S35 the FF look? 3) Is a sensor size that's just as close to 35mm film as it is to traditional medium format film going to give a medium format look or a full frame look? Because for photos, at least, 44x33 gives a total area of 1452 where 24x36 gives a total area of 864. Meanwhile, 6x4.5 (56x42mm realistically) which is the smallest medium format film size has an area of 2,352 and 6x7 (56x72) film dwarfs it at 4,032. 4) To turn around the question above, if there is a specific medium format look, why do tentpole movies like Mission Impossible which have effectively unlimited budgets use smaller formats, even for some of their big, sprawling epic shots? (And yes, MI Rogue Nation used Alexa 65 for the underwater scene, but the rest was shot on smaller sensors IIRC)

With this aggressive price, in the next few months we'll see if it's capable to shake a little the market. Next iteration of Z9 will probably incorporate some of these features.

I think this camera looks pretty great for the price. Its still out of my price range, unfortunately, I’ll have to stick to an iPhone 17p to get my raw kicks. But I can’t think of anything in the price range that comes close. (Is the Panny S5 IIX also considered a “content creator camera, as well”?)

Yes I agree. I’m ok with this strange little ZR as a sort of 1st gen beta to roll out the new cross pollination. Smart to make it $2,000 because it’s still very capable but it will allow them to test out all the features on content creators, and then hopefully roll it into pros later.

Except it does not work if you import the NRaw clips from CFExpress to Resolve timeline, cut and export the parts you want to save via Media Management and then rename .NEV to R3D in Finder. it only works if you copy the clips straight from CFExpress to some Finder folder, then rename them, and after that import them to Resolve. It seems Resolve media management is doing something while exporting the .NEV files.

Just curious, if there is no such thing as a medium format look, then why do a lot of the great celebrated filmmakers choose to shoot on it when going for big tentpole films? The Joker, Dune, Revenant, Dark Knight, etc… Why go through all the trouble of extra weight, crew, expense if there’s nothing to gain over Super 35? Surely they believe there is a benefit. Why do you own a GFX 100ii?

If you put a card from a Z8 NRaw recording in a Z6iii does it play back? And vice versa.

Maybe NRaw from the Z6iii onwards is Redcode?

So is NRAW really REDCODE or is REDCODE really NRAW, I am confused now.

People with some memory will find strange he using Fujifilm cameras for stills in the movie, when he always showed that Olympus / OM cameras is what he use when fishing...

Yea, and I suggested considering NRAW normal as R3S LQ. But you have to be careful about base ISOs.

This seems to work both in NRaw High and normal, when renaming .NEV to .R3D in finder and then importing files to Resolve.

The Reddit source https://www.reddit.com/r/Nikon/s/v8tkSHdsZa

I've been musing how to proceed next, but figured out I have two challenges: - work out what lens characteristics I can emulate in post vs those that can't be emulated easily / practically - work out what lens characteristics I actually care about The reason the first one is important is that there's no point in testing how much vignetting there is between various lenses when I can simply apply a power-window or plugin in post and just dial in what I want. This will then leave the lens testing to compare the things I can't do in post, like shallow DOF etc. I figure there's no point choosing a lens with strengths I can emulate in post over a lens with strengths I can't. In my setup the real question is why wouldn't I just use the Voigtlander and Sirui combination, because it is relatively sharp anamorphic with reasonably shallow DOF, and then just tastefully degrade it in post. So, naturally, I asked ChatGPT which things were which.. ==== Characteristics You Can Emulate in Post (2D effects). These are primarily image-level artifacts that don’t depend on actual 3D geometry of the scene: Vignetting (darkening at frame edges) – trivial to emulate. Chromatic aberration (color fringing at edges, longitudinal CA is harder) – lateral CA is easy to add/remove, longitudinal CA (color fringing in front/behind focus) is less convincing. Distortion (barrel, pincushion, mustache) – geometric warping filters can mimic this accurately. Flare & ghosting – lens flares, veiling glare, rainbow ghosts can be faked, though authentic multi-bounce flare with complex aperture geometry is tricky. Bloom / halation – glow around highlights is very doable with diffusion filters or glow nodes. Contrast “roll-off” from flare veiling – can be mimicked with tone curves and haze overlays. Field curvature (apparent focus falloff toward edges) – can be approximated with selective blur masks. Edge softness – can be faked by blurring vignette. Focus breathing (slight FoV change with focus) – can be keyframed with a digital crop/scale. Bokeh shape overlays – you can fake oval bokeh, cat’s-eye bokeh, onion rings to some extent with blur kernels, though it looks “pasted on” if pushed. Characteristics That Are Hard or Impossible to Emulate in Post. These are fundamentally tied to how the lens bends and gathers light in 3D: Depth of field & true bokeh rendering – You can blur in post, but real optical bokeh depends on entrance pupil geometry, field position, occlusion, and interaction with 3D scene depth. You can approximate with depth maps, but never get the organic overlap of layers of out-of-focus light. True lens breathing with parallax – cropping simulates magnification change, but real breathing also subtly shifts perspective/parallax in the image. Perspective rendering (due to focal length + entrance pupil position) – can’t be changed in post without full 3D scene reconstruction. Aberrations that depend on 3D ray paths – e.g., coma (stretched points off-axis), astigmatism (different focus for tangential/sagittal rays). You can fake streaky stars, but not with the depth-dependent accuracy of real glass. Micro-contrast / “lens pop” – the way fine details render due to MTF, stray light control, and glass polishing isn’t really capturable in 2D. Polarization effects – coatings reduce or enhance reflections differently based on polarization of incoming light; impossible to recreate after capture. True specular highlight interaction with aperture blades – starbursts, iris shape, and diffraction spikes are fundamentally optical. Subtle 3D flare interactions – when a bright light causes ghosts that float relative to the scene geometry, which post plugins often fail to mimic convincingly. Sensor–lens interaction effects – e.g., color shifts or vignetting from oblique ray angles on digital sensors, microlens interference. ==== It's not a bad list, although some things are a bit mixed up. The things in the above that stand out to me for further investigation are: Longitudinal CA I wonder how much of the Tokina + wide-angle adapter look was this, it seems to have subtle CA though everything Experiment with oval inserts to get a taller bokeh shape, maybe between the taking lens and Sirui adapter ...and just setup some tests in post for barrel distortion, edge softness, resolution (blur and halation). The rest of the stuff above I either know about or don't care about.

It looks like it is. It also look like original RED RAW codec doesn't show any superiority over ProRes RAW codec https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtTRoOWaw-w With ProRes RAW footage in Davinci Resolve you can choose between many Log profiles including Panasonic V-Log, Sony S-Log3, Canon C-Log2 and avoid using Nikon NLog. In this case Nikon Z6 III for me is a better camera. It has the same sensor, but also great EVF, mechanical shutter, full HDMI port. Nikon Zr main selling point is R3D NE or RED RAW lite if we can call it.

The fact that NRAW High bitrate is exactly same as R3D NE, could be a hint

I'd like to see some deeper analysis on it. Could be that R3D NE is just high-bitrate Nikon raw and it could be that Resolve limits log3g10 decoding to files matching the r3d extension without checking the underlying raw format. Either way, that's pretty cool.

No translation, but you don't need to.

During my “Shall I get a Z8” research project - which has been going on so long it is featured in the Bayeux tapestry - I found the MC-N10 grip really appealing if a little pricy. However, what is a setback is that it is a right handed grip (good for me) that connects by cable to cameras, including the ZR, with left sided USB ports. I initially thought “well that’s awkward having to have that USB cable trailing across the camera but will use it over Bluetooth anyway”. Except that was a flawed assumption as it doesn’t have Bluetooth. Nikon makes a virtue of it being wired only in their product page. ___________ Reliable connection This grip connects to your Nikon camera via USB-C, ensuring a stable connection no matter where you shoot. You won’t have to rely on a wireless signal if you’re shooting in a crowded location where radio interference is a problem. _____________ And I completely get that of course. There are always cable routing solutions to make it less janky than Nikon’s own promotional materials of it show so I’m sure some mitigation can be had. The £69 Smallrig ZR cage has locking clamps for USB C as well as HDMI ports so it’s only a couple of zip ties away from not being a massive issue. At £400+ though, I’m sure they could’ve incorporated the small addition of a Bluetooth capability with a small internal rechargeable battery to provide the option and still made money. With the ZR having fewer hardware buttons it’s a product that could have a lot of appeal if you can swallow the price and the lack of wireless.

Nikon/Red might be an interesting option. Has anyone tried the remote hand grip? How does that work? I used to love the ergonomics of the Canan C100 hand grip. For my line of work all of the latest cameras are pretty good as far as image is concerned. Now ergonomics, ease of use, reliability and price are key for me. I’d love a remote hand grip for Lumix.

If the Smallrig cage for the ZR is used, the bottom left side is Arca-Swiss compatible and the right side has a hole which allows the battery door to be opened and at least the CFExpress type B card should be easy to swap. This depends to some extent on what kind of construction the camera is mounted to, if there is space for opening the door, but it would be possible to do on some of my tripod/monopod heads. I have the Smallrig grip for the Zf and I haven't taken that off in ages. Card and battery access on the Zf is similar to the ZR. I think this situation is just an inevitable consequence of making the camera so small. You can plug in external power via USB-C to extend the shooting time. CFexpress cards are available at least up to 4 TB capacity so that would cover quite a lot without having to open the door frequently. I am sure Nikon will make larger ZR-series cameras that have fewer compromises in how the ports, cards, etc. are accessed.

Yes, the IQ you get from Lumix 200Mpbs and 300Mbps H.265 files is quite good. Z6iii H.265 is 400Mbps, and IQ a bit better than what S5ii had. Tried also ProresRawHQ on GH7 and Z6iii and the data rates are even bigger than NRaw High. With 2TB CFExpress card Z6iii gives this estimate for 6k25p record times: NRaw High 171min 1559Mbps NRaw Norm 336min 794 Mbps ProressRawHQ. 65min 4102 Mbps 4k25p ProressHQ 316min 844 Mbps 6k50p NRaw Norm 168min 1587 Mbps 4TB USB C SSD is quite cheap nowadays, but scrubbing in Resolve is not as smooth than with TB4 Nvmes.

Has somebody confirmed that renaming the file works?

Not that I have tried it yet, but post-season, for the first time, I am going to as storage is cheap and why not at least try the full capability of the camera?, good point, the data rates on Lumix has always been good!