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I initially dismissed the Nikon ZR. The compact body and odd I/O layout made it seem like a prosumer crossover rather than a serious tool. After spending real time shooting with it, that impression completely changed. The huge integrated display transforms the experience. It feels intuitive, immersive, and for the first time a Nikon mirrorless seems built for video operators. Pair with a Leica M lens and it delivers this uncanny mix of smartphone agility and FF cinematic depth, a combo that feels surprisingly liberating (think sigma FP but with IBIS). The body is metal and feels rock solid. The flip out screen isn’t ideal for low angle work, but that’s about the only ergonomic miss. The stills side remains capable and thoughtfully separated from the video mode. The redesigned video interface finally feels modern, with waveform, quick exposure tools, and four customizable banks all within reach. The main system menu still feels like a maze, but the dedicated video page is a major step toward a proper cine oriented workflow. I just hope Nikon will pull more from the RED side (traffic lights, open gate, 17:9 etc) in a firmware update. Despite its understated design, the ZR stands out as Nikon’s most forward-thinking hybrid yet. The 32-bit float audio, internal R3D recording, and that massive touch display all combine into a package that feels disruptive and modern at a mid-tier price point. Haven't been this tempted by a camera in a while.

I have been a pro photographer for 20 years now and live in a tropical island with lighting ratios you can't even imagine in most countries. This is why I have been always very sensible to Dynamic range result/progress/testing for the last two decades, as most of the population including me are darker skin and we have very hard light. During that time I saw the first digital cameras (I would say from 2 to 3rd generation) depending on how you count, go from about 10 to 14-15 (SNR) DR test in RAW, as contrary to most videographers, photographers been shooting in raw for decades. I have seen what a 10 stops DR camera image look like and my ZR is no way as bad as this. Last week I had to film some B rolls for the launching of an international car brand here, where we had to mix some of our country shots with their own media. And as I had little time, I had to go around and shoot in less ideal conditions with harsh middle day shoot and some with harsh backlight and I had to dig deep into the shadows. This is start of the summer in the southern hemisphere, so the light was already hard even not quite as from December to March. So to come back to CineD, I have enough experience to know their numbers/conclusion are just BS. In fact they are some of the reference that have educated me, mostly with the latitude test, which I consider the best test today. But when you take RAW numbers and pit it against mostly compress/NR based codec, guess what, it is disingenuous. Because if you had watched DR test for the last decade with Xyla charts and Imatest, you would know that Raw data tend to score much less because of noise, but in that noise is still a ton of Data. Gerald Undone who is himself not a Nikon Fan, does the explanation very well in the ZR dynamic range test. First he got 10.9 stops at 0.5 medium noise rating, which strangely jumps just a little bit to 11.1 on a normalized 4k timeline, and just adding a little NR, where as he says the details in the shadows are still very high he reaches 12.6. This is in the RED Komodo X range. I have seen other test from french (I am a french Speaker) to even Korean which were around same numbers and which corelate with multiple side by side test. And no way their are 2.5 stops difference between the KX and the ZR!!! But it is not the first time I see them cooking their numbers to support some kind of narative. But this time it was the exact opposite for the Sony A9iii. The one with the Global shutter that even with your eyes could see with a bad DR, but I remenber the guy putting so much NR to get 9STOPS of exposure latitude, to say it had great latitude. Yes it is a 1080p image, but doesn't mean it has 1080p details, which I pointed in the comments.

1) This didn't go well for Sony when they released the QX100 and QX10 years ago. It also didn't work well for Olympus with the Air A01. Of course, none of them stuck a stupid bullshit "AI" label on the end of the camera name so who knows, maybe that's what was missing. 2) Fuck GenAI. Of all the things I want integrated in my camera, that's at about the rock bottom of the list. 3) Note that at least 3 of the 6 testimonials that they include (screenshot below) don't actually say anything positive about the camera. "That's very different" is not an endorsement. In fact, where I live, saying "that's different" is usually a form of backhanded insult. 4) It looks like it only supports wifi connection to the phone without a wired option. In a best-case scenario, screen lag will be tolerable. Go to any reasonably-crowded urban area, though, and enjoy the slide show and/or "connection lost" messages. 5) Even though they say you can choose from over 100 M43 lenses, I'd be worried about magsafe supporting any moderately heavy lens. Even if it does, the camera will be really unbalanced. 6) When Caira goes out of business, there will be nobody left to update the app and the camera isn't usable without it. Cross your fingers that Apple doesn't change some necessary API during an OS update. 7) Super early bird pricing is $695. You can go buy a used Panasonic G85 in like new condition for about $430. You can get an OM System OM-5 in like new condition for about $760 or in excellent condition for about $690. The G85 is cheaper and pretty good - at least on a spec sheet, they seem similar - a little bulkier, maybe. The OM-5 should be at least as good of a camera, also is quite small (not as small, of course, but very small by modern camera standards), and will keep working whether or not OM Systems stays in business or decides they want to stop making cameras. 8 ) Phone cameras are already very good these days. Mine is more than good enough for any of the sort of images/videos that they seem to be promoting on their site. If not, I'd probably just get a newer/better phone and not some janky add-on. 🙂 9) Small company + Kickstarter means you'll probably be waiting a good long time and/or never actually receive the order. Even though they say they have 500 mainboards already in stock, actually building and shipping hundreds of units is a really hard challenge that a lot of kickstarter projects don't take into account - and sometimes not even due to fault of the creators. My 4x10 film camera that I ordered from an established brand (Ondu) who already made/shipped lots of pinhole cameras for years beforehand took WAY longer than expected, at least partly because suppliers kept sending out-of-spec parts to them. The owner is a really great guy and we had some nice conversations when I asked my camera hadn't come despite that he said they were caught up on orders (turned out that their tool to collect shipping information lost a bunch of responses so he had to go manually collect them from a lot of people). So anyway - for me, Caira is a hard no. I'm basically the opposite of their target market, though.

Finally got ZR yesterday. After changing all the settings like I have them in Z6iii, except Zebras and Vignette for R3D, got to test it a bit too. 1st, the screen is really good, you can change almost everything needed via the touch id and new menus quite quickly and intuitively. Need to figure out still what I need to set on those 4 custom buttons really. The grip is tiny but feels ok in the hand. Still, with heavier lenses like 1kg 50 f1.2 and 135 f1.8 having the L shaped gage’s bigger grip seems to be a must, as it also has the Arca-swizz base plate for easy tripod use too. Quickly tested R3D NE vs NRaw to R3D hack with ISO 800 and 6400, and R3D NE was a bit cleaner in the shadows and seemed to hold the colors better too. The Z6iii EVF and all of it’s buttons in muscle memory seems still of course more convenient to use, but there is no going back to timy 3.2” screens after this. In various Panas and Z6iii I almost never used the screen. Cinema tools has made a false color LUT, propably have to buy and try that too, if setting the zebras to 245 for R3D highlights does not work like zebras at 255 for NRaw. The build quality seemed robust, but the shutter button needs a bit heavier press. Could not find the focus limiter in the menus either. Hopefully the weather allows to take both ZR and Z6iii outside, and see how the ZR handles, and what the footage looks like.

Leica M Typ 240... 2012, this was before Panasonic got more involved with making Leica's stuff. I'll give this a 10/10. The whole motherboard slides out really easily. I baked it in the oven to bring it back to life from completely dead. The solder needed a reflow apparently. 200 degrees C at 7 minutes did the trick. Custom chips all over the place. Utterly beautiful mechanically and in terms of the quality of connectors, cables, lots of metal parts and brilliantly designed internals. Next up another older camera, Nikon D700. Very impressive motherboard with separate analogue to digital converters. Probably why the colour science still has the edge on the newer sensor designs with their inline on-chip A/D. Nikon own branded chips. By contrast in the newer Leica Q... It's actually a Samsung. And the lens relies on a LOT of digital correction, so it's certainly not in same league as a Leica M when it comes to the quality of parts or optics. End result in terms of the images is very nice though. We'll call it the Samsung Q. Onto Fuji now and I have fixed an X-Pro3 and the old X-Pro1. The original had a lot of Fujifilm's own CPUs inside. It's very well made but has a lot of traditionally soldered wires on the mainboard, old-school style. This continues with some of the newer models too. X-Pro3 was an easy fix, a ribbon cable (FPC) had come loose where the sensor plugs into the mainboard. Some tape over the socket had shrunk in the heat and pulled it ajar. Pictured above is the X-Pro1 circuitboard, it's more proprietary whereas X-Pro3 looks a bit more generic on the inside. Here is an oven bake of a Panasonic LX15 mainboard... The components can withstand very high-heat and usually cold solder joints are responsible for a wide range of issues. Unfortunately in this case I made a mistake with the stop watch and the card slot fell off 🙂 Here is a sensor with hot mirror... the IR cut filter glows pink in this shot. If you remove it you get an IR capable camera and can also shoot normally if you add the IR cut filter to the front of the lens instead. I think this sensor is from my Lumix LX100 II or could be Sony RX100, I forget 🙂 Now onto Sony and their smaller cameras are too tightly packed. FPC cables develop cracking over time as some of the metal is folded and bent too tightly to fit the smaller bodies. This is an RX100 and it's very common to see these fail on the cable that connects the lens. A relatively easy fix actually and replacement FPCs are $5 on Aliexpress. But I don't rate Sony's quality as highly as Fuji or Panasonic so far. Onto Canon and I have had a very bad experience so far with their modern cameras. The DSLRs were much better made (i.e. 5D Mark III which was easy to tear down and remove the OLPF back in the day!) They use extremely fragile FPC connection sockets and the ribbon cables themselves are brittle and cheap. Sometimes a few bends and they tear. Doesn't make for a stress free repair that's for sure. In contrast to Panasonic, with the lovely GX80 it's in a different league and take a bit of extra abuse by an amateur repairer. I've done a lot more than what I have time to post today but probably will do a deeper look at stuff for YouTube or the blog. I rate as follows the brands then... 1. Leica (the extra cost is noticeable on the inside) 2. Panasonic (they know how to sensibly build a camera and logically lay out stuff, and they don't scrimp on component quality) 3. Fujifilm (high repairability score and robust, sensible designs) 4. Nikon (high repairability but many of the newer cameras not up to high-standards they set during DSLR era) 5. Sony (they try to pack in too much) 6. Canon (really quite terrible, cheap cost cut components, and badly laid out) Stay tuned for more. I do this just for fun, and really enjoy it. Plus now I have a oven baked Leica 240 to play with 🙂

It's been a while since I had to film on land, and I'm using many lenses that I had almost forgotten about. For my rare terrestrial shooting, I always used old Yashica ML lenses in manual mode, and then I got an opportunity where an entire Panasonic kit came almost for free. - Panasonic Leica DG Macro 45mm f/2.8 - Panasonic Leica DG 12-35mm f/2.8 - Panasonic Leica 35-100mm f/2.8 - Panasonic Lumix G 100-300mm f/4-5.6 But I only used the 45mm macro a lot, which is superb underwater. After two days of shooting (I have a GH5 and a GH5MII, and my buddy has a GH5S), I wanted to throw them all down the toilet. Actually, the image quality of the Panaleica lenses is stellar for my taste (maybe even too clinic), but what really gets on my nerves is the impossibility of using manual focus creatively. They all have focus-by-wire, which means it is not linear, and the focus changes with the speed you turn the ring. I know, I'm stating the obvious. But let me vent, and then I'll get to the point. I rummaged through the GH5MII menus and discovered that since it has a similar firmware to the GH6 and GH7, in theory, it would be possible to choose whether to have linear focus and also set the focus throw. But—and here's the fun part—only on some types of Panasonic lenses. Finding the list is like looking for a unicorn, and when you finally get it, you discover that few of the listed lenses (which would almost be a basic kit) have this capability. It's crazy. Basically, it doesn't matter how many new camera bodies Panasonic makes (personally, I think the GH7 is the last of its kind) if you then have crappy lenses that haven't been updated for 15 years. Playing with continuous AF, I discovered that the 45mm Panaleica macro can't even keep the focus in AFC in basic scenarios. And it should be the king of macro in the M43 line and it doesn't support linear focus. In the end, I had to do some relaxing therapy by mounting the Yashica ML 50mm f1.4 and enjoying turning the manual focus ring. Out of curiosity, what is the situation with Panasonic FF lenses? Is it the same situation there too?

Yeah, they are the Alice people rebranded. A project that leaves their original customers behind and launches a "new" one. Lots of cases in Kickstarter, or in case of software it could be called "Luminar move"... Very different from, like, the Pixii project.

The polite version is “no thank you”.

I just want an S1H in exactly the same body but a bit lighter, with the updated real-time LUT and AF. Done deal.

I had the LPS Red service included with my GH6 when I bought it new, and unfortunately had to use it the next year when my camera screen started glitching out and eventually died. Other than the fast turnaround it was a huge headache and the communication from Lumix Pro Services was terrible. I had to pay out of pocket for shipping both ways, an inspection fee, and then parts and labor. The third party repair facility was great, but there was a glitch in the LPS system showing on their end that my camera wasn't registered even though I had proof on my end. I could never communicate with anyone at LPS efficiently and the email tag back and forth was incredibly slow and nothing was ever resolved and did not get the said warranty coverage. Maybe I'm the only one that has had this issue with them, but then again maybe this is why it's going away.

I had no idea it existed and send my stuff to a place in Paris and a company whose name I forget… And Panasonic Lumix told me to do this with no mention of these so called pro service so 🤷‍♂️

Pixel binned raw 4k120 of ZR has the same amount of details of FX3, if not more, which is a native 4k sensor

Seems like another hidden cost of the internets obsession with AF. The more everyone screamed about it from the rooftops the less that manufacturers cared about anything else. The worst thing about the camera industry is the BS that the online communities prattle on about. Now we have clinical lenses and megadollar-megapixel cameras that fill up your card in 10s flat with 8K 60p RAW and require all kinds of Film Emulation in post to get rid of the sensation that digital scalpels are being hurled into your eyeballs when you look at the footage. No wonder vintage lenses have never been more in-demand. ...or vintage point-and-shoot cameras or digicams for that matter.

The C50 is a $3,900 camera. It's quite good and I'd love to have one, but there's a LOT of competition in the $4,000 space. It shouldn't surprise cined that not everybody's talking about it. Ultimately, it will probably be a good seller for Canon. On the other hand, adding something with "Redcode" in the name as a feature for the ZR was a fantastic marketing decision on Nikon's part. With a decent colorist, the differences in a final image between the Redcode NE and Nikon raw are likely to be negligible - but it doesn't matter because people can now say that they have a camera that records Redcode RAW. These days, used Komodos are not that much off the ZR in price - and lensrentals.com has their early BF special on off-rental gear where you can get 15% off one of their Komodos which are still in decent condition - putting them almost equal to the ZR in price. But getting an OG Komodo means a bigger camera with a smaller sensor, much worse autofocus, worse/less flexible built-in screen, much ergonomics, worse media (Cfast vs CF Express), and probably buying a v-lock battery plate so you don't need to source older/expensive Canon camcorder batteries (I did exactly that), and a less flexible lens mount with fewer third-party lenses available. But you do gain global shutter and 16-bit raw with better test chart performance. So yeah, of course everybody's talking about the ZR. Not sure why anybody, cined included, should be mad about it. People are welcome to use whatever hammer they like - and more competition in the cinema camera space, especially affordable (in comparison) competition is great for us as consumers of those cameras.

On my last trip I shot with the GH7 >> Voigtlander 42.5mm F0.95 >> Sirui 1.25x anamorphic adapter, and was really taken with the images, which remind me of 90s/00s cinema. But the setup was big, heavy, and didn't have as much shallow DOF as I wanted as I was shooting a lot of compositions at a distance without having many/any things in the foreground. Optically it's equivalent to a 68mm F1.5 on FF. A good horizontal FOV, although it's a 'between' amount and I would go wider and crop rather than going tighter. Physically it's large and heavy, weighing 2.1kg 4.6lb and with the 82mm front gave me very little stealth factor, further justifying shooting street with such a long focal length. Despite me shooting in busier areas and stopping when I first come upon a composition, people clocked me very frequently. In terms of the brief, I think that I want: - similar horizontal FOV (H-FOV) - shallower DOF - similar softness (the Voigts are nicely soft wide open, taking off the digital edge beautifully) - funkier bokeh, preferably stretched consistently vertically rather than swirly / cats-eye - smaller / lighter - not thousands of dollars I'm pondering how to get there, I've figured a few potential pathways... Vintage speedbooster - GH7 >> Speedbooster >> ~50mm F1.4 I already own a M42-MFT speed booster, which combined with a ~50mm F1.4 lens would give a 71mm F2.0 FOV. This is slightly deeper DOF but is only a AUD200 or so, and when combined with an oval insert, can give great bokeh. This is a proof-of-concept shot with a M42-MFT speed booster and a 50mm F1.8 lens with a couple of bits of paper stuck to the rear lens element: This is definitely a vintage / funky approach, but isn't so fast. This leads us to the elephant in the room, which is that while MFT is excellent at a great many things, very shallow DOF isn't really one of them. We are using a 0.71x speed booster already but need to decrease the crop-factor further. Vintage speedbooster + wide-angle adapter - GH7 >> Speedbooster >> ~50mm F1.4 >> Wide-angle adapter If we add a 0.7x wide-angle adapter (WAA), we end up with a crop factor of 0.995, which is essentially FF. This seems promising as TTartisan noticed that everyone-and-their-dog wanted a longer telephoto lens to go with their M42 Helios, and gifted us an M42 75mm F1.5 swirly bokeh master. Combined with the SB + WAA that gives us a 75mm F1.5 which is a bit longer than I'd want, but is interesting. BUT, and it's a big but (I cannot lie) Spherical wide-angle adapters seem to be universally rubbish. I bought two ultra-cheap WAA and they were rubbish (when shot with a fast lens wide-open anyway) which is to be expected, but recently I snapped up a Kodak Schneider Kreuznach Xenar 0.7x 55mm adapter, which should be a fine example of the breed, and it was also pretty rubbish. Certainly, more 'vintage' than I am looking for. Subsequent research lead me to conclude that people stopped making these adapters once the mirrorless revolution happened and people stopped using fixed-lens camcorders. I'd be happy to be proven wrong..... However, there is one type of wide-angle adapter that is available with modern optical standards, and that's the anamorphic ones, which leads us to... More anamorphic - Blazar Nero 1.5x anamorphic adapter This is probably my ideal anamorphic adapter in many ways (but one) as it's smaller and lighter than the Sirui, isn't quite as sharp (I don't mind) and has more squeeze to-boot. If I use it on my 42.5mm Voigtlander lens it widens the HFOV compared to the Sirui (not ideal) and also doesn't change the DOF. If we combine its 0.667x HFOV boosting with my 0.71x speed booster we get a crop factor of 0.95 - wider than FF! So, combined with that 75mm F1.5 TTartisan lens, that's a 71mm F1.4 equivalent. Compared to the 68mm F1.5 we started with that's only a slight improvement in DOF, and only a slight improvement in size and weight, but we've paid the better part of AUD2000 to do it. ...and for that kind of money, we can just buy a FF camera. Go Full Frame - but what to buy?? Remembering our original goal, the option that stood out to me was the Lumix S9. It's small, has a flippy screen, and is within consideration at around AUD1500 used. The OG S5 is similarly priced and I hear it has some good mojo. There might be others too. Ideally, I'd go with a smaller body, as if I'm paying this much for a new system, starting with a GH7-sized body seems counter-productive. The S9 is very similarly sized to my GX85 and here's a comparison of sizes... [GH7 + Voigt 42.5/0.95 + Sirui] vs [GX85 + SB + 50mm F1.8]: The weights are similar - those setups are 2110g vs 800g - more than 2.5x the weight. In terms of lens options, this is a world I am unfamiliar with, but considering we've just blown most of our budget on the body (and spare batteries etc) lenses can't cost too much. Considering I am inclined towards cheap/funky/vintage MF lenses, I figure the options include things like: Vintage 50mm F1.4 lenses (like a Takumar) on a dumb adapter The swirly 75mm F1.5 TTartisans on a dumb adapter The 7artisans 75mm F1.4 in L-mount These aren't shallower DOF at all! FF is a lie! (I kid.. well sort-of anyway) Even if I spring for more expensive options like a 50mm F0.95 that still has deeper DOF due to the shorter focal length, and it doesn't look like F0.95 lenses for FF are affordable for anything other than 50mm. If I start adding serious weight again with things like a Sirui 150mm T2.9 1.6x and then attach my 1.25x to it, I'd end up with a 150mm T2.9 2x anamorphic lens, which has a HFOV of 75mm T1.45, but the combo weighs almost as much as my GH7 rig does in total! No wonder the replacement series from Sirui were made from carbon fibre! Perhaps the only real jump in shallower DOF is to combine FF with an F1.4 prime and an anamorphic adapter, like FF + MF 85/1.4 + Sirui 1.25x adapter which would give an HFOV of 68mm F1.1, which is definitely faster. If this was the S9 then it would be smaller and lighter, but is still 75% of the weight and most of the size of my GH7 rig. But I suspect there are better more 'inventive' options. I want cheaper and lighter and I'm willing to 'pay' for it in image quality (actually I'd PREFER less sharp glass with more funk) so there have got to be other paths too. One I can see is to continue the speed-boosting pathway with a L-mount speed booster like 0.71 EF-L / FD-L / PL-L / NIK-L and then pair it with a ~100mm FF lens that might have a greater than FF image circle and not only get a shallower DOF but also get to see some funk at the edges (or even the actual edge of the circle which might be really cool). Unfortunately vintage 100mm F1.4 lenses don't seem to be common or cheap. My current leanings are to accept defeat and just go with the [GH7 >> M42-MFT SB >> oval cutout >> vintage 50mm F1.4 Takumar] option, which gives a 71mm F2.0 FOV, and only costs a couple of hundred dollars.

Just when I was about to pull trigger on a ZR, Canon drops this bombshell: Canon EOS R6 III Key specifications 32.5MP full-frame CMOS sensor Built-in image stabilization rated to 8.5EV 40fps burst rate w/ pre-capture 3.0", 1.62M dot fully-articulating screen 7K recording up to 60p (Canon Cinema Raw Lite) Oversampled 4K <60p, 4K 120p with audio Q&S mode dial 3:2 Open Gate recording up to 30p $2799 / 2899 € ..and it doesn't stop there, Canon is also dropping a 45mm f1.2 STM lens.. for $470 / 445€ !

I would HATE to lose Panasonic from cameras. I have all my fingers crossed this is not the case.

It's a move away from "Pro" in the marketing of cameras. Part of this is because they know Lumix has no chance vs Canon, Sony and Nikon with press agencies and in the professional sports market. The autofocus situation never allowed them a toe in the door let alone a foot. But I also think it hints at something deeper. When Samsung withdrew from the camera market they also heavily cut back on pro marketing and support first. Not that Samsung's own PR people were aware of it (even days after the NX1's cancellation they thought they were still in the camera market!) They were fired shortly after.

Agreed. I have a hard time thinking that in the modes of the S5ii, somehow we're getting systematic overheating on the S1rii. Granted the processor and sensor are different, but Lumix, who is known for testing their cameras well, would have not released it had the thermals been off the wall.

Nope. Approx 20 days of shooting with temps up to mid 30 Celsius and cameras get warm, especially in direct sunlight as all black bodied cameras do, but not a single overheating warning, never mind a shut down. No lock ups either. Well might have been one now I think about it but had more than that on my A7RV I had prior and a none issue. Most of the overheating talk is from; folks unfamiliar with the camera in the first place + use age of non-recommended cards + incorrect heat management settings + tests deliberately designed to cook the thing and so combined, well yes, you probably will make it have a meltdown but real world shooting with proper cards and set up? Err no. Actually, 99% of the overheating talk is people talking about overheating who do not have and have never had or used the cameras and are in reality expelling more hot air than the cameras do!

The R6 Mark III has IBIS, so that point’s off. Canon’s lineup is just segmented now: the C50 is the pro cine body, while the R5 and R6 series are prosumer hybrids. I’ve tried both the ZR and R6 (mk2) back to back. The ZR looks cooler and that big screen is gorgeous, but ergonomically it’s kinda average: very thin, shallow grip, no EVF, cheap buttons and a menu system in dire need of a revamp. Lack of DCI, open gate and meh exposure tools on the ZR is what bugs me most. Overall I still really like it for its streamlined compactness and big display but it's clearly a first gen product. The Canon feels faster, more natural, and better balanced once in hand for hybrid usage. That said I admit the R series design language has zero mojo compared to the cine oriented C50, FX or ZR, but the R6 III is far from crippled. It’s balanced, feature complete, and a solid proposition in today’s mid tier hybrid market. The real genius move I think is launching it alongside that super affordable 45mm f1.2 where other brands keep pairing slow zooms as their kits. Side note but speaking of sex appeal the camera that really had me drooling at the shop was the Sigma BF. Totally unpractical form over function design but that heavy solid unibody paired with minimal clever UI make it one of the most unique and oddly inspiring designs in recent times.

I think your current GH7 set up is giving you all of the cinema already, but an S9 could be an exceptional full frame option in a pretty small package. There’s a new TT Artisan 40mm f2 which suits it perfectly and is cheap and has ‘character’. It’s decently sharp and contrasty but also has a certain glow to the highlights reminiscent of a subtle mist filter. Sharp of course is not necessarily a desirable requirement for ‘cinema’ but it’s something that is easier to dial back than add. The main appeal of this set up for me is it’s pretty small and pretty small means more likely to take it everywhere and use it and it has that ability to be both a personal/family camera and decent cine camera as you wish. I had been using mine as an A/B cam for work but now repurposed it as a personal/C cam with either the Sigma 17-50mm f2.8 for cropped video or when I pick it up, this new TT Artisan. Also toying with getting a Thypoc Simera or two for my slightly more pro S1RII’s and turning my S9 back into my working B cam purely for autofocus situations. Options options options…

For me the future of LUMIX lies in; A. will we see an S1Hii and B. if so, what will it be? If there is one in the pipeline and it’s a banger, it won’t ‘save’ the brand anymore than it would for any other manufacturer as it’s a much bigger picture than that, but as a (pro) consumer of this brand, it will at least have demonstrated their short term commitment. Also we have to remember that the sky was falling in on Nikon just a few short years ago and they were utterly doomed…and at the end of 2025, they are the industry darling. Financially how any of them and doing and what their short, medium and long term goals and outlook is, probably even they don’t really know and Panny are probably on the shakiest ground of all, but had a fairly big surge, at least amongst the community bros this year so… Being totally honest, clean sheet tomorrow morning, I’d pick Nikon without hesitation, for my needs, but I think LUMIX/L Mount would still be in second place and really loving my S1RII’s which are arguably the best tools for my specific hybrid needs available today. ZR vs S1RII for stills? Zero contest, easy LUMIX win. For hybrid? LUMIX wins again. Run & gun video? Could make a case either way but unless shooting R2D2-3CPO raw, I think LUMIX has more advantages. As an outright cine camera, maybe the Nikon. As a brand for the short & medium term, probably Nikon is the safer bet, but depending on how invested you already are. Will this pro services thing have any bearing? Well as a pro with Panny for nearly 5 years now, wasn’t even aware of its existence so… 🤷‍♂️

I understand. On the other hand, they could just call it Panasonic Pro Services and it would be completely seamless. I can’t help but feel there’s something going on behind the scenes, though. You’re right — moving from Lumix Pro Services to My Panasonic just doesn’t make sense from a user’s perspective, at least in my opinion. I smell a rat — the whole thing feels a bit fishy.

MYPANASONIC ? That would be 6 more letters to fill in with my black sharpie than I already have to and 6 too many. They are not going to change the camera brand from LUMIX. Maybe for some kind of service, but not the brand itself. Unless they have been smoking some serious grade shit and/or are ‘seeing someone’ for their personal difficulties.

This name screams "consumer". You just don't replace "pro" with "my" if you're targeting professional shooters. But nothing is impossible with Panasonic marketing team. However ditching Lumix brand is bigger mistake. Unlike Canon/Nikon and even Sony, their customer base are 80% video 20% still users, and all of them call their cameras Lumix. But marketing aside, they're facing a economic challenge they exacerbated themselves with not being fully committed to low budget segment of the market. The reality is pro folks don't upgrade their tools very often. You need enthusiasts/younger generations to keep the cash flow. But they just updating the high end full frame cameras. M4/3 is perceived as dead. L mount APSC is nowhere to be seen. LX compact in GX7 resurrection era? None.

R63 is looking good here in terms of colors and texture. It is not going to set any records for DR, but it has a nice filmic noise pattern and the DR is perfectly fine for its class. It would be a great camera to carry around town, especially if you are already in the Canon system:

I hope that’s not the case - I mean somehow Pentax is still kicking around, (thanks to the Ricoh GR 😅).

Big markets of sports, journalists, news agencies, they need fast troubleshooting, fast lane repair, and so on. It does look like Panasonic has given up targeting these customers and will only be focusing on consumers, content creators and enthusiasts with future cameras. So does that mean no more high-end or pro cameras? (Could explain lack of S1H Mark II)

A bit small and lacking in res for 2025, but otherwise looks a decent spec overall but nothing especially exciting. That sounds pretty decent though... With a clean sheet, I'd still go Nikon personally, - I just prefer their history and direction they are going in.

Another nice camera that ist perfectly capable to shoot your personal "Frances Ha".

Well yeah the lack of a fan isn't going to give you unlimited thermals in the most demanding recording options but I find it quite acceptable (above reviewer got almost 2 hours in 7K RAW Open Gate 30p) and unlike the ZR the h265 is actually very usable here with constant bitrate oversampled 4K. If you add open gate, 4K120 no crop, mech shutter and EVF, it seems to me like the better hybrid choice. ZR is still fantastic considering its compact size, R3D code, 32-bit float and 4" display. It's just nice to see Canon holding no punches in this mid-tier market! I'm still undecided, I hope this pushes Nikon to add open gate and more RED tech like traffic light system to ZR via firmware.

Remembered it now, they are called Nikken Techno and are the official repair centre for France for Lumix cameras…or so I was told and guided to by Panasonic France. Used them twice to date. Very efficient.

Its equivalent of Nikon and Canon announce they are closing down their NPS and CPS service. Sport shooters, photo journalists, news agencies, would panic. But Panasonic has no dog in that fight, and probably just gave up.

That Sigma APS-C zoom is lovely on the S9 in 4K60p

But that way they would have to redesign all the cameras. There is no space for PANASONIC on the front 😜

I also just saw that this is from the same company that did a kickstarter for the Alice camera. I think there are still crowd funding backers waiting for delivery on that one - the campaign ran in 2021. Here is a reddit thread where the OP deleted their message, but you can see a lot in the comments about huge delays with the last camera and as of 2 months ago, the company was responding to people saying that they're finally shipping. https://www.reddit.com/r/photography/comments/1brpul5/deleted_by_user/ According to one comment, the new camera seems to just be the same as the old camera (due to the previous version losing in a trademark dispute in court), but with a new name and software. So... at least that means there's less risk on them taking 4+ years to ship this one. Anyway, my recommendation is now even more strongly to just get a used OM-5 or similar. Buy from a reputable used vendor and it'll be in your hands in a few days. If they actually ship this camera someday and you're loving what you see from it, you can sell the OM-5 and buy the Caira at that time.

That is a very good analysis! Thank you!

Same here, I've always been super happy with the build quality of every Lumix camera I've ever owned. I am starting to wonder about the GH6 screen and if there is some sort of defect with it because I've seen several other people on various forums mention the same issues I had, and my second body gave me a scare just the other day when the image on the LCD was shifted slightly to the left (back to normal now....) This is exactly how my problems started on my first body and eventually the image wouldn't flip itself to the correct orientation, it would be shifted off center and would flicker every now and then before completely dying. The only thing I could think of at the time was having the camera in some light rain, maybe somehow the weather sealing for the whole screen mechanism isn't great?.. Who knows.

I've never had a Panasonic really break on me. It did happen to me with an Olympus E-P7. It had faulty IBIS. I sent it in and they eventually replaced it with an E-M5iii (an upgrade). I was super happy. Not it's the same service today.

I could never understand the "accelerated" manual focusing, it makes things just more difficult and unpredictable. Nikon fortunately have firmware updates to most of the S-line lenses (exception: 14-24/2.8) that feature what people call linear manual focusing (I'm not really sure what is linear in it, what it does is make focus ring position and focus distance correspond to each other in a bijective relationship at least within the power cycle of the camera). What's even nicer is that you can choose how much you have to turn to achieve a given focus change, so it is adoptable for different users and needs. I think the focus by wire should never have been accelerated by default in any lens. As for the priority on autofocus, mirrorless so-called hybrid cameras and their lenses are a bit more (still) photography-oriented than video, and so the needs of the stills shooters come first in most models. Autofocus is very useful when you want consistent focus on the eye, for example, or when shooting action subjects (again, stills). For some things (such as when multiple subjects at different distances have to be sharp in the frame, and the best way to achieve this is to focus in between them) manual focus is better but manufacturers chose to prioritize ease of use than the needs of skilled users. Lenses with mechanical manual focus are of course available, natively and via adapters, for those who prioritise MF.

I found a false color LUT for ZR in a chinese forum. It was on a Chinese cloud host unavailable for foreigners, so I got it and uploaded to jotta: https://jottacloud.com/s/433167a024c75694baa94438259ee5d1b8e

Regarding Andrew's original post, unfortunately for many of the camera companies, not just Panasonic, I'm a consumer that feels pretty comfortable being behind the curve in exchange for bargains. Meaning, I only buy older used cameras. Just bought another GH5 for $350, for instance, to help my wife do YT content creation. Not only is that cheap, but it's still better than anything else I could buy brand new for under $400. Are there enough people like me? Combine like-minded-folks and typically obtuse Japanese attitudes about the global market and the magic 8-ball sez "Outlook Not So Good"

No reason that the iJustine channel can't publish a great video..... Well done to the film-making team that created it: Strange that there's no credit for editing. Maybe that was also Nathan. Well done to Apple for creating a phone that can produce results like this when used competently. Any YouTuber with the desire and sufficient resources should be able to replicate such a thing. It is a nice example of what the tech can do when used correctly by competent film-makers. The night shots were pretty good. I've found it to have impressive DR and low-light capabilities, but this was slightly more than I was anticipating. Those areas of Tokyo are probably quite well lit though, and I bet there was a healthy dose of NR in post for select shots. The results are still good though.

Yes, 100% Tokina made and these lenses predate the Kino and Komine partnerships. Vivitar lenses have a serial number system that will tell you which original manufacturer made the lens normally but these older 60’s preset versions predate that serial number system. I’ve researched them quite a bit over the years however and found information confirming Tokina. My 35mm is doing great and solid, maybe you got one that was not very well taken care of?

This camera checks many of the right boxes for me. First of all i am bit tired of the Sony colours. + small + can use sony glass + 6K + i like the design - micro hdmi - button layout It's strange how these companies navigate the market with serious hobbyiests on the one side and big companies on the other side ( who do not really care wether the cam costs 3 or 5 k). Main question for me: Is it fun to use? Does it have the mojo? Will my live be cinematic?