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That price is a steal, especially at €180. The tiny size and weight are a huge win, and for 1.6× FF anamorphic the sharpness sounds solid. Pincushion is definitely the odd part, but at that focal length it’s kind of the modern trade-off—curious to see how it stacks up against your Iscoramas, especially on character and flare.

In terms of colour in LOG and rec.2020 the only difference between cameras these days is how easy (or otherwise) they are to grade, for example C-LOG on the old Canon 1D C was so easy, it only needed the addition of contrast and barely any colour grading at all to look cinematic. Now there are massive differences between LUTs compared to between LOG curves and colour. So when you see all these reviews, tests and comparisons you are just seeing a LUT! It's almost comical really, nobody gets under the skin of what the camera is doing - they're just putting their grading skills and LUTs on show. And the codecs are all so good... no more 8bit banding. I compared the Sony a1 SLOG3 H265 8K to Nikon Z9 NRAW 8K and there was nothing in it really, not even in terms of noise and shadow detail. You could do just as big a grade or white balance shift on the H265 footage as you could with NRAW. Now the way I like to think of RAW as useful is as follows: - As a way to bypass poor camera image processing... Hardly needed now... In the old days, light and day difference between something like 5D Mark II compressed H.264 and uncompressed Magic Lantern Raw (in Cinema DNG), even at 1080p it was a different league of image quality. - As a way to increase image quality with drawback of huge file sizes. Now we get if we're lucky a 1-2% increase in image quality for a 1000% increase in file size (over H.265 10bit) - As a way to turn off in-camera sharpening and white balance (do it in post). However image processing has got so flexible you can turn sharpening off in LOG... look how smooth and natural Canon LOG looks on the old 1D C or EOS R6 III 10bit H.265 for example - A file format to show to clients that says you're serious 🙂 And we all know why the majority of videographers are fawning over raw delivery whereas ARRI ALEXA DPs casually go round doing it all in ProRes That is another comparison the YouTube bros refuse to do well... the ALEXA ProRes vs ARRI RAW and Canon LOG vs RAW I haven't seen a single good comparison!

I'm talking about LOG video, it really does depend on the user more than the camera how the colours come out, especially as the modern range of gear now have a similar high level of codecs. So the Z-LOG = S-LOG = F-LOG they're all very much the same sort of thing. Whenever you see this LOG footage on YouTube, it's been graded by the user, either with a LUT or with their own grading skills in Resolve. Yet all the comments are like this... WOW the camera has great colour science, blah blah blah. And i's the same with RAW... All the sensors are now at a high level, similar dynamic range and so on. If anything they are now too good and are moving AWAY from the look of film. As for colour science... If you shoot JPEG or rec.709 video, then what the camera is doing matters far more. But in LOG they are all using a very similar wide colour gamut, and similar LOG curve, similar white balance, it is only the 8bit side that still has a big variation between Film Simulations, Photo Styles and Creative Looks. So just bear in mind next time you see footage on YouTube that the LUT is doing 99.99% of the colour you're seeing not the camera.

The comments say Nikon has such great colours, but with LOG footage the colours are up to the user not the camera.

The screen is the gateway drug. I am much weaker than @BTM_Pix and after handling one briefly for 15 minutes ordered it 3 days later. It's coming tomorrow. I'm not bothered by the "lackluster" DR results or anything. I also bought it in hopes the firmware updates will add even more value, which is a big no-no but I heard ProRes LT is confirmed coming.

Blimey if ever there was a GAS curing end-game camera it's the a1 for that price. It has the spec to last until about 2050! It's smaller than the Z8, more nimble ergonomically and has better colour science (I am not joking).

Sorry to say you're wrong. Rear elements between Kowa 8z/16H, ElmoII and B&H are infact all exactly the same size. I've said it twice in this thread already. I've had numerous copies of all 3 lenses and they are exactly the same. Only rear thread size of B&H is bigger than the others, not the actual lens. Also the info about B&H supposedly having better quality control I'm yet to see reflected in lens performance. I assume this gets perpetuated mostly by people with B&Hs to sell . As far as I've witnessed B&H appears to be no better quality than any of the other Kowas. The best sample of any lens I've had personally has been an ElmoII. Some are plastic, some are metal, I've had both on the Elmo II's.