Andrew Reid

Yep it's needed but a big job, more than I can handle. Some off topic is fine by me, just not every other post and really long uninteresting diversions into what someone had for dinner.

Sony and Panasonic without the film heritage but there right from the start with digicams. Sony always put the Sony logo on the body. Panasonic didn't do this, and I suggest it's Lumix that's the problem not Panasonic. "Lumix" doesn't have the worldwide brand recognition of "Sony". The problem is Panasonic doesn't have the brand appeal of Sony or Nikon either. They were never quite there in Hifi, Walkmans, game consoles, and so on... Panasonic are bigger in white goods and appliances, like LG, where Sony has always put the emphasis on consumer electronics and gadgets. I'd rate the camera companies brands in order of camera-ness like this... 1. Leica, they're as synonymous as it gets. Panasonic should buy the brand. 2. Canon, for they are the most popular 3. Nikon, for being second only to Canon in terms of success 4. Sony, for pioneering the digital market from the late 90s onward - but no SLR or film heritage unless you count the Minolta buy-out. 5. Fujifilm. Arguably should be higher but their film-era SLRs were rubbish and they didn't catch the mainstream wave of DSLR says with the niche S5 Pro and so on. They were known not as a camera company but for film. Nice digicams aside, Fujifilm are only a recent success story in digital. What saved them was getting into mirrorless with the X100 and X-Pro in early 2010s. Then I rate the dead brands highly... Kodak RIP Olympus RIP Minolta RIP Contax RIP Lumix RIP (only joking) And then in no particular order there's a lot of variation between what's an active brand (Lumix) and what's camera-ness (Pentax). Obviously Pentax is a high-cameraness brand, you will hardly think of microwaves with them. But today they are almost anonymous on the market, from a top 5 brand to basically nowhere and nobody can decide if it should be called Rioch or not. Sigma. Very high lens-ness, not so much cameras, still a niche. OM System. Feels like a Temu Olympus Panasonic / Lumix on their cherished 5% market share doing admirably but never seem to be capable of troubling the top 5 despite great specs, pioneering models and a loyal bunch of customers. Did I forget anyone?

This is an interesting point about the lenses. Also Nikon DSLRs I seem to remember had weird quirks with the aperture in video mode which took them an age to change. Cameras design has two major fields... ergonomics and tech specs. Get both right and you have a good chance of producing something nice. Which is what the Z8 has achieved. The best ergonomics and best tech specs. Now the third thing is price and if you can do flagship specs and the best designed camera for cheaper than your rivals can, the only things stopping people buying it are lenses and brand loyalty, which are tough issues. Panasonic for example has a brand and lens mount problem, in a way they always had during MFT as well. Nobody can decide if it's a LUMIX or a Panasonic. Or whether Panasonic stands for LUMIX or kitchen appliances. Nobody can quite be comfortable switching wholesale to L-mount, they don't know how committed they are to it after the big gap between flagships and the focus on mid-range tittle tattle. Plus Canon and Nikon just have so much momentum behind them from the prior DSLR mounts whereas Panasonic have had to start from scratch. Anyway I don't mean to keep knocking Panasonic, there's still life in the old dog yet, I just think they could learn a LOT from what Nikon are doing right now.

Pretty standard that 4K 120p is pixel binned on FF cameras. EOS R5, Sony a1 and Nikon Z8... now Pana has caught up a few years later. Only the full frame FX3 and Sony a7S III can do it without pixel binning due to their silly low megapixel count. Crop sensor 4K/120p got more options. GH6, GH7 are pretty good. X-H2S it is a further crop but still looks nice. I would say the 6K/60p of the S1R II is the mode that should have got the most attention in reviews though. There's no crop in 6K/60p right? And the rolling shutter is much better than in 8K? I still won't be getting one though. There's no way it is better than the Z8 for 3500 euros.

I want to see Facebook groups die a death. Let's get the good folk on those groups to come here instead.

I rate 4K/120p as a sign of a fast readout. It's not a slow sensor in all modes. It just lacks the latest cutting edge design attributes from Sony Semiconductors to do an 8K readout at under 15ms. So a nearly, but not quite the best sensor in the 40 megapixel range. The EOS R5 and Z8 are better and a few years older. Panasonic are making a bit of a habit of being nearly good, and 5 years late. BTW just watched the full Gerald meltdown. The ending is quite illuminating... He says he's got this great money spinner of a channel and doesn't want people to pull at the yarn to unravel his enjoyment of it. The way he frames it is that the channel is a community, blah bah blah. But this is really about his job satisfaction and he's clearly had it. In some ways I am empathetic. I understand too how annoying people can be. But why does it have to be about the S1R II in particular, he gets loads of other criticism on all sorts of topic. Seems unfair on loyal Panasonic users to pin them as the attack-dog types. Sony fanboys are far worse 🙂

So the forum is pretty good at the moment thanks to some spicy discussions, it would be boring if we all agreed all the time, but I also think we should encourage people to come back - big names from before like Mattias Burling , Dave Maze, they are missed. Maybe we could occasionally drop them a note to say so. I can't promote the forum myself, it just looks like I am spamming people with my blog. Maybe that's where you all come in 🙂 Would some of you be willing to post a few links here and there in popular Reddit groups, on DPReview and on social media groups? It would supercharge the place and get us noticed more... Then we'd have some great discussions with new people, and regain some control over the camera community in an independent way, rather than everything being hoovered up by the big US social media giants who are opening supporting a fascist regime at the moment. Never been a better moment to get our independence back from social media. Mark Zuckenberg and those like him are pure evil. The forum way is a better way. It offers everyone here a higher profile and higher involvement. The better our content, the better the discussions, the more people will come... I know a lot of forum posts have to reference other people's talking point or content, so a topic can devolve into lots and lots of URLs to social media, or YouTube video embeds. But rather than have rules around this, which I don't want to do, it would be great if we could encourage people to join who will use the forum a bit like having their own blog - Posting original hands-on opinions and content about cameras and shooting... Our own insight is better than constantly referring to that of others - It would be good for the community. Just some thoughts and open to more ideas too about how to grow this rather nice place that we've got.

Without wanting to drag the topic off into DSLRs, I was talking about Nikon's history in mirrorless cameras starting with the 1" sensor 1 Series cameras. The DSLRs from Nikon were never all that popular with video users. T2i > D90, 5D II > D800 and any number of cameras > D5200 but at the D5300 / D750 stage Nikon did at least start to take video more seriously. But ever since the Z9 they have been giving us way more. The Z6 III, Z8, Z9 and Zf are all better than Canon for video. Z8 > R5 Z6 III > R6 II Z9 > EOS R3/R1 Zf > whatever Canon has for the same price Just overall better specs and handling. So that's a big reversal since 10 years ago and the DSLR era for Nikon. RED purchase only going to supercharge this trend. They are ahead of Panasonic on value for money, specs and sensor tech, including especially AF and codecs. They are ahead of Canon on specs, handling, ergonomics, mount, and dare I say it also value for money. Ahead of Sony on some things too but perhaps not in terms of sales or user numbers. And Fuji is a different kettle of fish altogether so it's harder to compare.

Still need to upload those files... I did a quick test of the Voigtlander 40mm F1.2 and 35mm F1.2 today, Leica M mount versions on the Canon EOS R5, Sony a7r III and Nikon Z8. This is to see exactly how different the optical performance is on each filter stack in the 40+ megapixel range. So along with the N-RAW and N-LOG files I'll try and get that turned into a blog post soon too.

Wonder how many of them are still there?

With all due respect... It's not a forum about you, but about cameras. Let's start thinking about what is interesting to read and insightful for the 100s of people reading or researching at this moment, and what is pages and pages of personal exposition with no relation to the topic of cameras. We can discuss Gerald, he is very much on topic... including this one, as he has reviewed the S1R II. "UK (from London to Belfast) is my official residence and Malta will follow at same time for soon, very likely. With a few productions a bit spread all over EU and East Europe to include Moscow and Kyiv" This isn't S1R II related. It's about you. Let's not always make stuff about ourselves shall we?

Why do we need to know this?? Lol.

Can we easily ignore it? I mean you just spent nearly the entire last page talking about your career. What use is this information to us in an S1R II topic?

Yeah that's fine. Don't bore me with it though.

Gerald started 8 years ago as a streamer, he was never interested in cinema or the photo world

That's why the sales and marketing guys all burn out. They don't have that underlying passion or talent for art, cinema, photography... They get a kick from the affiliate links, channel building, glossy presentation, studio sets and meeting other influencers so that they can social network, and build further influence. That's where Gerald spends his time rather than getting a kick out of pointing his camera at stuff.

Does the Z6 III have open gate? I also see that the Z6 III gets a new colour mode... Flexible Color which allows you to create your own in-camera Nikon colour profiles in NX Studio with the full colour grading controls you find in Resolve.

He is starting to behave exactly like his best friend Philip Bloom with the thin skin and obsessing over a few negative comments on social media. There was a time when you could guarantee Bloom would come flocking to a comment like a moth to a flame, you only had to call him out anywhere on the internet and he'd find it. There's evidence he even resorted to editing his own Wikipedia at one stage. It's fucking pathetic. It is better to let the ego go when it comes to celebrity. Focus on the objective stuff, the creative. If Gerald is genuinely as jaded as he sounds maybe he should have a break from YouTube and see if he does actually enjoy using all this gear. If he goes and shoots some personal stuff and doesn't enjoy it then he's better off leaving the camera reviews to people who enjoy BOTH the technical and the shooting part.

Google with their Pixel phones aren't exactly imaginative. It's a shame as they pioneered the early computational photography advances on smartphones with the Pixel 1, 2 and 3. Since then just iterative boring nonsense although the Pixel 6 Pro is a decent deal now for under $250 used. Microsoft failed for no other reason than being shit at phones. They may be a big hitter but you bring a braindead OS and middle-of-the-road hardware to any competitive industry, and you fail. Apple has peaked. The US political drama only serves to strength in the European, Asian and Arabic markets for smartphones. It could get Apple banned in the EU and the tariff wars will disrupt Apple's supply chains. That plays into the hands of South Korea and Samsung. It also allows China to innovate even more, and the Chinese domestic market has so many people in it that they don't even need to release their lower-volume flagship phones internationally any more. America is very good at software, at the OS. Here is Japan's biggest weakness. But China is now demonstrating that their education system produces some rather good programmers and app developers. All the Japanese camera firms have to do is outsource the computational side and overall firmware to China and put as big a bunch of sensors in the camera as possible, along with a very decent OLED screen and phone, boom you now have the best camera phones again like in the 00's. Make Japan Great Again.

Indeed this is where the real-world perspective helps. If a camera isn't designed to run in the highest quality mode for hours of continuous monologue, don't use it for that. Show us instead what it can do and what it's suited to. Unless there's a serious issue like with the EOS R5 at release where 30 or so photos in live-view locks you out of shooting 30 seconds of 8K for half an hour at a time!!! I don't use my Sigma Fp-L in Cinema DNG as a Twitch streaming cam! What next? GFX 100 for OnlyFans? It's the imaginary user he has in his head that's the problem isn't it? He doesn't quite have the average filmmaker in mind. Indeed and this is what fucking pisses me off about it. The Sigma Fp for example is an cine-art tool, it isn't a webcam. And he gave it a shit review because for his use-case of pointing it at himself doing selfies with autofocus on a tripod it wasn't optimal. Had he gone outside with it and shot a mood piece of nature and beauty in Cinema DNG, with a great sound track over the top maybe he'd have appreciate it more. His rant about not showing us any beauty and how he justified that was pathetic. As if he was looking down at art altogether and saying look how fucking irrelevant it is to camera reviews. It's the whole fucking point of a fucking camera you fucking dick.

It's a really entitled video, all about him. A lot of people would be very happy to have his job and his money. He doesn't have to shoot anything, doesn't have to chase clients and he often doesn't even have to buy any gear, it comes from marketing. I don't mind that he's rebutting criticism, it's the way he does it that annoys me - Saying he doesn't care about dynamic range and rolling shutter, after spending the last 10 years and every video advocating such stuff to us and measuring it... that is just highly fucking disingenuous, not to mention hypocritical. And I do think that lacking the artistic perspective matters in camera reviews. He needs to go out and shoot more. Instinctual talent and creative ability is one thing, you either have it or not. But it's as if he doesn't even try at it. No wonder he sounds so jaded. There's literally no point in camera performance, dynamic range and so on if you yourself ain't going to use it creativity. I think he's bored. The pivot to Apple products isn't far off.

Thought I'd make a list, and it has ended up being quite big... - That sensor filter stack is amazing, turns a mediocre soft-ish lens wide open into something much better - Separate sensor readout on Z8 for the EVF, it's so effing fast... A real shot getter of an EVF - Z-Mount... It has proved to be the most versatile of all mounts, in the history of the industry - RAW video codecs, post RED-buyout they are clearly on top of the RAW game - Sensor development... Although they're using Sony Semi, these are not off the shelf chips. The Z8/Z9 sensor is superior to even Sony's own flagship full frame sensor (in the a1/a1 II/CineAlta Burano) - Heat management... 8K 60p RAW with not even a vent in the body (Z8, Z9) - IBIS. The Zf takes things to new heights, even better than Panasonic. As good as OM-1, but full frame - Rear screen... 3.2" may not sound a lot but it's appreciably larger than 3.0" on the Sony alpha cameras. - Ergonomics. Once you get used to the Nikon controls and menus they are some of the most intuitive... Really fast to switch between stillls and video mode too... although like all cameras there are still quirks - Affordable lenses... The Nikon 28-75 2.8, 40mm 2.0 SE, and 24-200mm travel zoom are all very high performing optically for the price. They have also allowed Sigma to bring their affordable APS-C range to Z-mount. Now do the same with the full frame ART lenses please Nikon! - Autofocus performance. I think it edges out the other brands overall, or at least level with Sony. Superior to Canon, Fuji and Panasonic. - Autofocus performance via adapters... The AF with Sony FE-mount lenses and Canon EF is excellent (Megadap & Fringer adapters). - Range of video codecs, resolutions and crops... The list is almost never-ending on the Z8 and Z9. Very impressed with that side, now they just need anamorphic & open gate to complete it - Colour science. It's super and the auto white balance system is very intelligent, as it was on their top-end DSLRs like the D5 and D850. The ability to add your own custom Fuji-style picture styles via Nikon Picture Control Utility is cherry on top (copy on from SD card). - Extended oversampling in 4K/60p... Sony a1 pixel bins in this mode and even in 4K/24p. The Z8 is capable of downsampling from 8K/60p, a full pixel readout. - Rolling shutter performance in 8K. Their flagship sensor is just crazy fast and it means you don't miss an obsolete mechanical shutter for photography - Price/performance ratio. I think the full frame Zf is a real sweet deal, Z6 II by far the best video specs and codec in the mid-range and the Nikon Z8 brand new for $3500 is better value for money than the already good value Panasonic S1R Mark II, let alone compared to Canon or Sony. The equivalent specs from Canon (EOS R5 II) and Sony (a1 II) cost $5-6K. It's all a big step from where Nikon were 10 years ago, let's get some perspective... Canon, Sony and Panasonic were far out in front for video and Nikon had only 1" sensors in their mirrorless cameras! The D750 was a decent start at taking video more seriously but only a 1080p DSLR with limited features, no phase-detect AF for video, no IBIS and so on. A much better stills camera than video. The D800 had been a big success in the years earlier, but the 5D Mark II and III took the vast majority of the video attention. D800 was definitely more a photographic success story. This recent progress makes me wonder what Nikon can do with RED. It would be nice to have a Z8 C with REDcode, global shutter and built in e-ND. It would also be nice if they update the Zf with the Z6 III sensor and N-RAW... Zf Mark II anybody?

"Rolling shutter doesn't matter to me" "Dynamic range doesn't matter to me" It's like the Pope breaking down and saying Christmas doesn't matter to me!