Andrew Reid

Ah yes, I've never liked them either 🙂

If you're in Berlin and would like to check out some nice gear give me a shout...https://www.kleinanzeigen.de/s-bestandsliste.html?userId=6113630 I have listed the Nikon Zf, Sony RX100 V, Fuji X-T30, Oly PEN F and more... The Cooke 50mm T2.8 is also up there, a legend 🙂 The shelves are full! It has to go!

Never heard of it, but I like it.

Haha. I am not one of those then... Lenses are more important than cameras, really. It's true a lot of people are happy with one modern 24-70mm F2.8 for silly prices like $2k that can only be used on ONE camera and maybe a fast 50mm... F1.2? for another $2k (fuck me... no wonder they don't own many), maybe a longer lens - 70-200mm perhaps for 2 grand or whatever, that is 6 grand totally down the drain. Just get a good 35mm prime and learn to use back-button AF. I don't understand why they think the heavy zooms are such a great option. The 24-70s are massive and don't have the character of a nice 35mm F1.4. 28mm or 35mm are a fantastic focal lengths... Not too wide for people shots, easy to crop to a 50mm FOV. The do-it-all lenses. Give me a small 28mm F2 like the Leica Q over a DSLR 24-70 any day... I have the images to prove it!

I see the guy responsible for Liquid Ass has taken his ass off to Meta, which in my opinion is one of the most unethical companies in the world. Quote of the week comes from Tim Cook: “The truth is we could make a ton of money if we monetized our customer, if our customer was our product" “We’ve elected not to do that.” “Privacy to us is a human right. It’s a civil liberty, and something that is unique to America. This is like freedom of speech and freedom of the press.” “Privacy is right up there with that for us.” ** Last time I looked, privacy was not unique to America. In fact, Tim has just spent the past 12 months cozying up to a fascist dictator. Maybe he got kicked in the head by a horse, I don't know. But something there isn't quite right there. Could it be that these companies are taking us for fools? Alan Dye is the guy responsible for the current mess at Apple by the way... Alan's a perfect fit for Meta as he appears in my opinion for all the world to be an absolutely world class bullshitter. If fake-it-till-you-make-it was an olympic sport he'd be the GOAT. How a design department under his leadership took years to come up with a worse phone UI, a cheap Android-like skin with folders that look like fucking icecubes, I'll never know. It must be one of the worst tech failures of all time. The quality control is nowhere. The aesthetics are awful. The AI side is an abject failure (Apple even admit it). What is it with these fuckers and failing upwards? He's gone from one of the most highly compensated positions in tech to possibly an even higher paid one, and his singular achievement has been to ruin our phones. I am actually an Apple fan, their design ethos under Jonny Ive was sensational and the engineering has always been spectacular, people criticise them for design over substance, it's total BS - Apple Silicon is a revolutionary architecture. The current Macbooks are the best laptops ever made. The iPhone, which gave rise to it (RISC Apple Silicon) have always featured the best operating system on a phone, by a mile, it's not even close. So what the hell is going on under Cook? This is a company which is able to attract the best product, marketing and engineering talent in the world, bar none. They should not be ending up in this situation, by promoting Alan fucking Dye into senior leadership positions. In my opinion they should roll back everything he's done. Give us back iOS 18 and apologise. The fact they have gone cap in hand begging to Google for ai features is the other big humiliation of 2025 for Apple. This is a rival which literally stole the very concept of a modern smartphone from Apple, and they are now rewarding them for it.

What does a lens to body ratio of 1.7 mean?

I don't know what people see in new cameras really. Used ones just so much more exciting. A GFX 100 for £1800. You don't need to buy a single medium format lens for it... Bang on a 10 quid adapter and Minolta 50mm F1.4 for 50 quid and it looks like a Leica M11 with Noctilux F0,95. A7 IV for £1300... What a bargain that is. Does everything. If you need the exotic frame rates and codecs... EOS R5, 4K/120p, 8K raw, £1700. Sony a1... You can go to Japan and the flight pays for itself. The list goes on. I will never buy a new camera or pre-order one again.

My thoughts on the blog. https://www.eoshd.com/news/are-canon-back-on-top-in-specs-race-sony-a7-v-and-canon-eos-r6-mark-iii-comparison/

They're acting like the problem is new 🙂 https://petapixel.com/2025/12/03/sony-a7-iv-firmware-6-00-still-suspended-after-widespread-malfunctions/

It's not going to be groundbreaking as the standard model, leave that for the a1 II and a9 III which are indeed ground-breaking, especially that world first on a full frame global shutter sensor in a mirrorless camera. The big appeal of the a7 V for me is: Only E-mount and Z has the wonderful Techart Leica M autofocus adapter, which means ALL of my best lenses can now be used with back-button AF for stills. When I go back to a Panasonic or L-mount camera, I have to focus it all manually, such a drag after you have experienced the other way. Then there is the GFX 100, which is now my main system. You are happy to put vintage full frame glass on it, because it changes the look in a very nice way. It makes a full frame camera look like a crop. Darker, softer corners are the trade off - usually, I don't mind it. So if I am to pick up a full frame camera it has to compliment the GFX 100, do things that can't - like the Techart adapter, an eco-system with the most adapters, the outright best mount, great AF, great ergonomics and colour (Sony have improved a lot in these areas), and Sony has a lead in terms of their outright best full frame cameras. Which means, should the a7 V borrow from the a1 II, it ends up rather good - which it is. Whereas, Panasonic's latest $3k cameras tend to borrow from the S5 II, rather than a higher-end $6k Panasonic, which doesn't exist (yet) and no S1H II either. So Sony is attractive for a lot of shooters... And over Canon RF mount, E mount takes the win by far in terms of the available glass, adapters and pricing thereof.

It's repacked and rearranged sensor data, and it has heavy compression which changes the texture of detail in the shadows, and the noise pattern of the sensor. Have a look at the word raw and what it means. Raw means unaltered, unfiltered, unprocessed raw sensor bayer RGB data. You only have that with uncompressed Cinema DNG on the Sigma Fp cameras. And other fake raw codecs like BRAW are a hybrid codec, it is partially debayered-in camera.

Oh dear https://www.digitalcameraworld.com/cameras/mirrorless-cameras/sony-suspends-new-a7-iv-firmware-this-is-why-i-never-update-my-firmware-on-day-one How many people has Sony charged $800 to replace the mainboard, when the cause appears to be dodgy firmware? The a7 IV bootloop occurs on V5.0 as well, so it's not just the new V6.0 that it's happening with as is being widely reported.

Apparently in the UK we are paying Trump's tariffs as well. £2800 = $3696 USD I just think it's an utter disgrace how the Japanese companies are treating their customers. Their currency is at an all-time low vs the GBP as well, so when the foreign currency is repatriated back home they're making an enormous margin on the FX as well compared to pre-pandemic times. The US market and corporate greed dictates the value of everything in the world, it seems.

The a7 V is quite a predictable upgrade, nevertheless it's excellent. It does however miss a lot of video features that are present on the Panasonic S1 II / S1R II for a similar price, and the cheaper Nikon Zr / Z6 III... No open gate, no anamorphic, 4K is still maximum resolution, no real-time LUT can be baked into footage, and of course Sony still has no internal RAW codec to call their own. Still, this is a $3000 entry level camera so we can't be too greedy can we? Compared to... Sony a7 IV. The previous a7 IV is now even more of a bargain, it will probably go down even further in price used, most likely to region of $1200. Stills quality the same as a7 V and probably more than most people will ever need. Video quality is excellent but the rolling shutter is on high-side, that's one area as well as the Super 35mm 4K/120p where a7 V has an advantage. Sony a9 III. Well, keep an eye on that used price as it's already not a million miles off what a new a7 V costs... Sony a1. Again, the more powerful option vs a7 V albeit with a few of the new features missing, you can pick one up used in the UK for £2700, same price as a new a7 V. Nikon Zr. THE choice if you want fake raw. Nikon Z6 III. Much more price competitive than the new Sony. Panasonic S1R II. The dark horse. It does more. Price is high though and I much prefer the Sony body design and build quality. Panasonic S1 II. Certainly has the edge on the a7 V for video, if not autofocus. More expensive, but again keep an eye on the used market prices. Overall I think the a7 V is predictable - it's good that we have another partially stacked sensor option though.

Is the 16 stops in the room with us right now?

I'm talking about in cinema, there's no use case for it. Sports yes.

Did they finally revert to the original S1 image, and drop the over-sharpening?

I had to squint very hard to see the review amongst the advertorial at DPReview. Nice firmware updates and nice specs. Pity about the stuff Panasonic can do nothing about... - L-mount is a not such a popular mount compared to Sony E, Canon RF, Nikon Z and Fuji X / GFX, despite having been released 2nd after Sony - The price is wrong, it should be at the Z6 III level - The competition is really fierce and has a very big loyal user base eager for more - A7 V will outsell the S1 II massively and the EOS R6 Mark III specs are really competitive with not a cripple hammer in sight, Nikon with REDcode, Fuji with the best sensors - All the others have moved into Panasonic's video niche in a big way, so now Panasonic must stand apart without their biggest unique selling point (GH4 days are long gone) I don't wish ill to Panasonic but they have majorly fucked things up in the camera market and all those great specs and generous firmware updates won't save them It's all the marketing and planning team's fault, not the engineers. For the loyal ones, enjoy the S1 II and S1R II, they're great cameras even if they won't sell very many.

It's been done. The water damaged stuff requires a whole next level of repair skill though.

Must not be true then!

I have a rather nice Nikon Zf but you've probably already found one for 6 quid in Japan!

I have never understood why someone would shoot a 30 minute continuous take at 120fps. It's absolutely fucking bonkers. 120fps is for slow mo. If you slowed-down an hour long continuous take from 120fps to the cinema standard of 24p, it would last for 5 hours. Who the fuck is sitting through that?

I'd argue it is the MOST important because without the camera, you don't have a picture. It is the small differences between the latest sensors and codecs that's the unimportant thing. In cinematography, our job isn't to worry about the costumes or set pieces, that's the job of someone else. So lighting and camera are the most important for a DP. What has happened is the gap between the top-end i.e. ARRI and the cheap stuff has closed up. This has been going on ever since the start of the DSLR revolution so it's not a new thing but there's never been a smaller gap that exists now, for example between something like the Alexa 35 and a $1000 used Panasonic S1H. By the way although Magellan has beautiful content and really nice camera-work, the sharpness of it and the deep DOF isn't everybody's cup of tea. It does look a bit too soap opera in parts of that trailer, I think. It looks very different to an IMAX shot film. So there's big differences between formats and lenses still... The same cinema focal length for example on 16mm has always looked vastly different to same on IMAX or large format. Also there are big differences in grading style, camera movement style, and so on. I think most relevant for us is that you don't need to make a massive rig any more to get good results. It's horrible having the weight as a one-man DP. Probably why they used such a small camera on this.

New blog post: https://www.eoshd.com/news/thousands-of-sony-cameras-are-mysteriously-failing-but-sony-isnt-telling/

Leica could indeed be a good fit, or Blackmagic. But they don't have the spare cash to throw at that big support network ARRI has and needs to service all those demanding bastards that use the gear. I think it needs to be a bigger company like Sony or Panasonic. Maybe Nikon bought the wrong cinema camera brand? Should have waited 🙂