Andrew Reid

The stuff that bothers me about current online content, I could write a 10,000 page book about it... Camera tests (the ones that grab the most views that is) have become completely meaningless. They're just about undisclosed variables. Everything looks more or less the same and if there's a difference then you can be 99% sure it's due to a random undisclosed variable like somebody grading two LOG formats a bit differently, trying to match but not quite. Tells me nothing about the camera. Any subtly even big differences in texture between uncompressed Cinema DNG and silky smooth H265 just gets completely obliterated on YouTube and most people probably even watching it on a phone! It is like evaluating MP3 vs FLAC through a $10 bluetooth speaker. Completely pointless. The format is all so similar now as well. American YouTube clickweasels who chuck a cheap bit of eye candy in front of the lens and think the results are the definitive verdict on image quality! Manny has a model walking stiffly up to the lens and that is supposed to be definitive verdict on an AF system. Toneh has a pool table in Rec.709 colour profiles and that is supposed to say everything about high ISO performance. Not that simple now there is dual native gain circuits is it? This is where Gerald at least goes further than skin-deep, but it always ends up being a box specs reading or box ticking exercise that doesn't merge the technical data he collects with the creative appropriation of it through the eye of an artist or story-teller. So what REALLY looks best out of the Z9 and A1? All I get out of these videos is... slight colour differences? From different colour profiles? And different grades? Don't even mention what codec and modes they're comparing. Pointless shit. If you fall for this shit, you're enabling those high viewing figures. Wonder if what you're doing is just consumerism, entertainment. Nothing wrong with that. Just don't pretend anything otherwise or pretend it says anything useful about the current differences in camera technology and performance. We need a standard benchmark look for cinema as well to judge the mirrorless cameras by too. Perhaps in a useful camera test there should be an appreciation of the grain and texture of film, the imperfections of it, because everything looking technically perfect and clean is not really doing it for me.

Read the full article on EOSHD: https://www.eoshd.com/news/sony-a7r-v-and-the-curious-case-of-a-disappearing-dial-also-is-twitter-all-over/

Global shutter has been around on a few cameras already like the Blackmagic Production Camera 4K, which people complain about because it can't do ISO 800, and Sony F55 which also took a low light hit. There is a reason why the Alexa isn't global shutter. Because a fast rolling shutter is fine. Atomos have to compete with Sony if they want to enter the sensor game. I say good luck to them but get your company ethics sorted first, bye.

It was never going to be a viable product for the end user though. Anyone putting up money would have been burnt to a crisp. Didn't stop all the clickbait artists and DPReview hyping it up on their feeds though. A bit like you are doing now!

The good old GH1 and GH2 were the same mechanism. I'm used to it. Ultimately we will be heading to an A7R IV type solution though, and in future maybe that but with folding OLED. Although that is a long way off.

Quite surprised how on the ball Nikon is at the moment. I think it was a make or break year for the company and they are having to push to survive. The grip looks great. Just what was needed.

Can you shoot video in Aperture priority mode on this one? 🙂

X-H2 seems like a much better choice to me.

Impressive strides? 😆

Nobody is allowed an opinion if they haven't first developed, designed and marketed a cinema camera. I guess we should all just shut up then Apart from tupp?

No more of him on this forum please @kye

Looks interesting https://www.octopuscinema.com

Maybe a sign Sony are overtaking Canon & Nikon in sales figures. A YouTuber's favourite camera is the one that generates the most affiliate commission with B&H.

Gerald is one of the only long-form reviewers on YouTube, he doesn't have much competition. Someone like Kai is not going to be much competition The thing is Gerald is a box and spec sheet reader, the presentable face of a specs sheet. It is useful for finding out info although you could find it out a lot quicker by reading a web page instead. He is a tester of what it says on the box. If it shoots 8K he is probably going to show you what the wall of his studio looks like in 8K versus all the other modes. Without wanting to get rude, or personal, What's missing is any kind of real world creativity. This was apparent in the Sigma Fp and especially Fp-L review where he dismisses it for not having IBIS and fancy AF. That was yet more proof if you needed it that he doesn't shoot anything. Those Sigma cameras have a unique look, a unique form factor, and Cinema DNG. I think Gerald has an imaginary user in his his mind whenever he does a reviews. His imaginary user is always turning up for work for an online advert shoot, rather than on a street to shoot some poetic cinematography, or showing up at an indie film that he wrote himself. So it is always going to be heavily biased towards "getting a job done" based on having all the boxes checks... AF, IBIS, 120fps, and so on. It is a pity that in so many years he hasn't developed a craft, because he's had the perfect opportunity - so much spare time, money and freedom to put these tools to good use - but seemingly no actual interest in cinematography. Anyway, that's just my opinion of Gerald. A bit like as was the case with Bloom, these people get put on a pedestal because of internet fame and their work just doesn't justify it.

Interesting that he would give 1.24 for best dynamic range, do you have a link to the interview with Wakamatsu? Maybe the binning / oversampling different in SSD DNG 12bit vs internal 8bit DNG? However your 1.30x shots look pixel binned and all the same detail. Different sharpening maybe. From memory of my tests the other month, I am 99% sure it needs to be at 1.37x and anything less is similar in detail to the 1.0x full frame. Maybe Wakamatsu's ghost writer got the numbers slightly wrong... Someone also needs to tell him to get back to work from the motorbike track and put a LOG profile in there pronto 🙂 Wonder what the deal is with that still not being in? And an articulated screen would also be a great edition to future entries.