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"You reach a level where that 5% more cannot justify the 10, 20x the price." true

A couple of years ago, I was saying on Forums that Arri would fail, and people were calling me stupid. Ohhh its image is so special, etc etc how peasants could understand this. But the problem is you can't sell a lot of 70-100 000 usd cameras, the market is what it is, even more so when you have very capable cameras coming for much less. You reach a level where that 5% more cannot justify the 10, 20x the price. Before you had the highend market where camera cost/rent is peanuts compared to the overall cost, but that secondary market, the people that used to rent those highend cameras, can now buy a camera that will do 90% of what they need, and will rent only 10% of what they used to do. Arri and most US/german companies are going to be eaten by the Chinese ones. They still live in the rental business, for camera and other gears light lighting etc. The principal of the Chinese is that they will produce affordable equipment for the many, that will help them also produce for few highend that they will sell. You will find Aperture/Godox/Nanlight models that will cost less than a hundred dollars, to 4k led light costing more than 10 000 USD. They will sell a thousands of the 300 USD 300 watt cob monolight, for perhaps every 10 000 USD 5000 watt one. But those thousands of 300 USD lights will help them for R&D for those big lights. same for camera, imagine if Arri had repackage the original Arri LF in a more affordable casing, taking out some features of frame rate and sell it for 10K. They would be selling thousands of them, perhaps at the detriment of their higher ends, but those thousands of 10k models would overall bring so much money.

Well in the newer cameras (S1II and S1RII) it opens up certain data heavy codecs that are not available in SD but I think with the S1R, it was more a case of having a more robust (and cheaper!) card option? I had mine set up writing to both for peace of mind insurance but beyond that, no other needs.

S1R is a 6 year old camera so all of the codec options are pretty standard at this point. I think CF express type B will help with photos and faster buffer rate for continuous shooting. Other than that SD cards are fine for video specs.

I've just watched Train Dreams and it's 1,46:1 🙂

The gear doesn't matter thing is so boring, it does matter and you can't shoot much without it. The GH1 opened a door, because the aesthetic on offer was very different to the small chip digital camcorders at the time or Mini DV. It opened the door to all those interchangeable lenses, and there's a big difference in look between these lenses let alone between a GH1 and a Mini DV cam. Actually you can tell the Magellan is going for a certain look too with the GH7 - it isn't Hollywood, it's documentary style and looks quite clinical in places with a deep DOF, which they didn't have to do but the Lumix lenses are like that and it works well. So choice of gear, informs the look of what you're making and does matter greatly. The difference in image quality between a GH6 and GH7 doesn't matter quite so much... But the format of camera, and era of camera does.

Yeah the whole nature of the business is changing rapidly. It's easy to keep pace when you're working in the YouTube world, but I can't imagine how tough it must be in the Hollywood circles.

They're already closing down their pro services, and no way they invest in a zero growth business when they kill their own zero growth businesses. Canon can't do it. That would be all against their ego. They and their customer base believe Canon color science is best in the world, and thats why they have 50% market share. They're like "we ain't need nobody". Sony will have a integration nightmare if they do it. Arri systems are in conflict with the whole Sony line up. Also it would be an official admission that the electronics/AV giant couldn't get the color science right and eventually had to go shopping. Nikon acquisition of RED unintentionally made this perception that its a preferred approach in Tokyo. But it isn't. Nikon had to choose between two costly options and the acquisition was cheaper. In China, its only DJI who can gain a lot with Arri reputation in its arsenal, but I don't think Germans are comfortable with giving away this German icon to Chinese. Zeiss would be the perfect owner. A German brand with enough money, so the brand stays in the country, and they're heavily invested in high end part of the cine market.