Andrew Reid

A clearer shot.

I am running Linux on a gaming machine... Bazzite on a Legion Go. Windows 11 on that was a catastrophe and it was a massive relief to wipe the slate clean of Microsoft's spyware.

Still no video mode on the X2D II.

The DPReview preview doesn't even mention it.

https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/hasselblad-x2d-ii-100c-initial-review?utm_source=self-desktop&utm_medium=marquee&utm_campaign=traffic_source

Yet they added IBIS and an articulated screen, like the GFX 100 II... it has the same sensor as the Fuji... yet doesn't even do 1080p, let alone 8K!

This is odd behaviour from DJI!

Also still no curtain shutter, so no adaptable lenses (electronic shutter speed is too slow).

DJI are not handling the Hasselblad brand very well in my view.

And X2D II sounds more like a star wars robot than a camera. X Two D... Two... Why the two twos?

Why isn't it called the X1D Mark 3?

On 8/25/2025 at 2:54 PM, Davide DB said:

This is also a classic pattern in journalism here in The Banana Republic Of Italy. The big company or industrial group, or even the wealthy politician, sues the journalist. Anyway, they have a host of lawyers already on salary, and even if they lose the lawsuit, the amount doesn't even slightly affect their budget.

As with the fair use copyright strikes there needs to be a layer of legal protection for the smaller guy who doesn't have access to lawyers. Before the lawyers get involved, a judge should be able to quickly throw out spurious BS cases.

On 8/25/2025 at 8:34 PM, eatstoomuchjam said:

Yes, this is also a symptom of late-stage unrestrained capitalism when there is no longer a lot of competition in the market, but instead there are a handful of well-established/entrenched players who can gamble with losing some sales in the short term.  Don't buy a VW this time around because they added a stupid subscription?  They'll be in the running next time after all the others add shitty subscriptions too.

The same applies to stuff like car vendors trying to move away from supporting Carplay/Android Auto because they really want to sell you subscriptions to connected features in the car, despite that you already have all of those things paid for in your phone already.

I think more than ever there is a power struggle between the law and corporations, we'd do well to keep an eye on that - since most of the normal rules which keep companies in check like product and competition are becoming less of a factor. We have quite a few duopolies, even monopolies in many markets and in many countries.

What the corporate bastards have also realised, is that since the pandemic they are able to act like a cartel with patterns of cartel-like behaviour like all of them raising prices in unison and creating exclusivity of market share for themselves, and also making the consumer increasingly dependant on tech as a service... Less of a product, more of an app or a cloud based service. The pandemic accelerated all of this.

And that of course is where all the recent subscription bullshit comes in.

But of the two quite different topics raised in this thread...

I am way more worried about the abuse of the legal system to stifle journalism.

The companies in question are Nvidia and Universal Records.

I suggest to think twice before handing them your hard earned.

Absolute scumbag behaviour from these American corporate fascists.

The law and YouTube needs to stand up and say... enough.

You should not be able to abuse so many innocent people via the legal system.

It's all fair use.

On 8/22/2025 at 5:54 PM, KnightsFan said:

Disregarding the use of AI by professional filmmakers as a tool to make serious content, can I just say, fuck those same 2 voices reading garbage AI scripts in YouTube videos, and all generated images of celebrities. And especially fuck AI images of real landscapes and mountains on Facebook. The Grand Canyon doesn't look like that.

It reminds me of the early dot com bubble and all the junk websites and businesses.

All the junk side of AI is going to get swept away later this year when the market crashes.

Turns out I had the Makinon in a cupboard all along and will also give it a go.

Some of these old zooms have terrible 1.5m+ minimum focus distances or rely on an awkward to engage separate macro mode, but some have the macro mode on the main focus ring and some are even par-focal. The Exakta 28-70mm F4 MC Macro (made in Japan with 62mm filter thread, and mine is an M42 mount version) in particular stands out for me, nice vintage look, nice size and weight, ergonomic to use, decent optics and distortion, covers GFX 100 well, especially in square 1:1 aspect for stills or 16:9 for video, and focuses down to 1:3.2 macro with one turn of the main focus ring (no funny separate mechanism to contend with).

The best for flare is the absolutely pre-historic Voigtlander Zoomar 36-82mm F2.8, think it was the first ever zoom lens for SLRs, the distortion is absolutely insane at 82mm but if you stay between 36-70mm it has a lot of cinematic goodness. 

I have tried a number of cheap/crap 28-80ish lenses on the GFX 100 and they all have a knack for covering the sensor perfectly if you zoom in past 35mm

So the Makinon I am interested to hunt down in Berlin and try... The Nikon in theory has the perfect focal length for the GFX 100, but I am not sure I share our YouTube friend's enthusiasm for the flare... The Makinon was much nicer to my eye

15 hours ago, MrSMW said:

Carl Zeiss Vario Sonnar f/3.5 40-80 ‘push-pull’ zoom.

I have that as my ‘oddball’ lens and used it a few times with an EF-L adapter with built in VND.

Quite a few focal lengths covered there in a single lens!

Have you compared it to the replacement 35-70mm? The latter lens is very handy on the GFX 100 and filmic looking.

Here at a camera store in Berlin we have the 3 musketeers.

2012 vintage RX1R OG, the one without the AA filter.

It's very nice and I can't understand why it only goes for $900 used. Because it's got a much better lens than the Leica Q.

No red dot though.

RX1R II, the one with the tilt screen, phase-detect AF and pop-up EVF. It also shoots 120p, albeit no 4K. It also has a further innovation - the AA filter can be switched on and off.

This was Sony when they felt they needed to catch up with Canon and Nikon by really pushing the boat out. 2014-2015 vintage Sony. The $2000 mint condition used RX1R II is reasonably rare but when you do find one, it's still cheaper than the Leica Q OG and closer to the Leica Q2 in terms of image quality.

The pop-up EVF is mechanically a thing of beauty and offers a big field of view. Although without a rubberised eye cup, it isn't the most ergonomic or comfortable.

So to the new one, the one with the 10 year gap.

Sony have made sure to price it so that nobody buys one, which is good because they want you all to buy E mount lenses.

Just to summarise the street prices:

RX1R: $800-900 used

RX1R II: $2k used

RX1R III: $5100 / 4900 euro

The lens is identical to the previous cameras.

Which is fine to be honest, but I had more issues with the AF in macro mode on the RX1R III vs II. Weird.

I also dislike the finish and build quality, doesn't feel as premium. It feels a bit like the A7CR. Not great and nowhere near a Leica and the RX1R II also feels more premium. I do prefer the buttons though on the new camera, they are raised for a more tactile feel.

Gone is the pop-up EVF, in place of it a smaller standard one. The resolution of the live-view feed is better, but the overall optic is worse and more pokey.

Gone is the articulated screen. Which is a really weird one.

In comes a fatter battery - very welcome.

4K is there with no crop in 24p/25p... However, there's no IBIS or even OIS, which is a downer.

The AEL button has changed to an AF-ON... Again a welcome change, because the first two models had no back-button AF at all. Well done Sony.

So if you're looking for a full frame compact, the first two models are a steal.

I got the RX1R II again.

I regretted selling it the first time out!

I'd also argue that the conventional wisdom over high resolution sensors needing better glass is false unless you are heavily cropping the image.

I've had soft 50 euro lenses look better and better, the larger and higher the resolution of the sensor.

Same soft lens on a Micro Four Thirds camera or X-T5 looks terrible.

Put it on a GFX 100 and it completely transforms and looks so much sharper when you're viewing the whole shot as intended, as long as you don't start pixel peeping it of course.

You can't compare a fast 35mm to a 50mm F8 macro lens or whatever it is they usually use on the DPR test scene.

It's a fantastic lens, always was.

Even wide open at F2.0 it's close in sharpness to F5.6 stopped down.

Of course, only in the centre - but the DPR test scene is a sensor test scene, it isn't designed for wide angle lenses.

The real-world performance of the lens is what matters.

It's not as good as a Leica M APO 35mm F2 for 4 grand or the 35mm F2.0 lens on the Zeiss ZX1, but it's still very good.

I have always treasured the shots from my RX1R and RX1R II

That's what counts, not the pixel peeping at 2000% magnification.

I think it does just fine...

By far the most important thing with a lens is to go out and take real shots with it...

The Panasonic 28-200mm on paper is a piece of garbage.

Is not the sharpest, not the fastest, F7.1 at the telephoto end, and yet it shoots shots like this... Which look like they're shot with a high-end 135mm F2.0.

The rendering is just superb at 200mm F7.1

Does it look like F7?

Nah.

For the first time I got my hands on an S1 II yesterday, just in a shop. All my initial suspicions are correct, it's a second rate sensor in a very plasticky cheap feeling body. Not impressed at all with the way it feels in the hand given the lofty price tag.

6 hours ago, EduPortas said:

I think they saw the high prices the previous RX1 models go for after 10 or more years.

Not too bad...

RX1 OG: 700 euros used

RX1R: 900 euros

RX1R II: 2000+ euros

The Mark II price is only going to stay high and may even go up as it has features the Mark III removes such as the articulated screen, oops. The old pop-up EVF is more premium and funky too.

I think the hiatus was about protecting E-mount, as for some people a fast 35mm is all you need, and the return is about trying to out-Leica Leica on profit margins. Sony are a very numbers driven company.

I have always liked the RX1 series as it was one of the very few options if you wanted a full frame sensor and beautiful fast 35mm Zeiss lens matched to the sensor, in an overall package that is smaller than even Micro Four Thirds.

Hands down one of the best compact cameras ever made... the Contax T3 of our times.

The successor was never going to be cheap, but the price escalation in the camera industry really makes me an unhappy customer. I haven't bought a camera "new" for years.

Same sensor as the Nikon D4.

I had a play with the Sigma BF recently, and the controls are quite frankly batshit.

I came away a bit underwhelmed and it's definitely not an intuitive camera when you first pick one up. Some very strange decisions by Sigma going on with it.

It does look pretty though.

22 hours ago, ntblowz said:

Man all the recently released camera price have gone through the roof, I guess this will be the new norm

After all the social media shilling of the last 10 years maybe Sony want to see if they now have the brand power to pull off Leica level mark-up (without the German bits) and enter the luxury goods business.

The RX1R can be had for as little as 700 quid and has the same very good Zeiss lens.

The Leica M Typ 240 remains the cheapest and most underrated Leica for 2 grand if that floats your boat. I regret selling mine.

The Sigma Fp-L with EVF-11 has same sensor as the RX1R III, but like the a7rc isn't as pocketable with a 35mm F2 on the front.

The attraction of the RX1R for me has always been the fun factor and size, plus that Zeiss lens is one of the best you can get, perfectly optimised for the sensor and it sits right up against it, without the optical compromises of E-mount.

But in some ways the Mark III goes backwards from the RX1R II, which sells for around £2k second hand.

No articulated screen any more, and the beautifully engineered pop-up EVF is replaced with a boring standard one for cost reasons.

If you don't need 4K or 60MP, that 42MP Mark II does a lot of things right including phase-detect AF.

One thing I am curious about with the new model is whether they have modernised the lens.

As the original lens had a big heavy element that moves around and slows down the AF system.

The RX1R III at £4200 in the UK bodes well for the used price in a couple of years, probably down around £2800 unless they are really scarce.

The US price seems to have been Trump-fucked.

One final thought is I wish Sony would do a camera this size with E-mount, to give us something other than the Fp-L and Panasonic S9 to play with.

Love the RX1R III.

Hate the price.

Then again, people will pay this much and more for a Q3, and they are defining the market at the moment. Rich idiots

On 7/11/2025 at 12:19 PM, ita149 said:

The 28-200mm is a good lens. I tried two samples, both performed the same. Acceptably sharp wide open between 28mm and 40mm. A bit soft wide open between 50mm and 150mm and very soft wide open at 200mm. But increasing the aperture just by one stop make the lens much sharper and the lens is very good at 200mm f8. It's a very good compromis because when you look at by example the 12-60mm PL I also own, the 28-200mm is a 14-100 f2-f3.5 equivalent in M43. 
Even when stopped down to be as sharp at a good copy of the 12-60mm PL, the 28-200mm can do the equivalent of 14mm F2, 25mm f2.8, 50mm f3.5 and 100mm f4 while being sharp. You loose the 24mm wide angle but I think it's a good trade for most use.
My only issue with this lens is it makes sometimes a short but loud motor noise and vibration (about 2s) when using it in video with the S1 and S5. No issue with the S5II, S1II and S1RII.

If you like lenses with high contrast and good color rendering, the 28-45mm is really excellent. Mine is very sharp at 28mm and extremely sharp at 35mm and 45mm even wide open. The focal range can feel somewhat limited but there is no better 28mm on L mount except the overpriced 28mm APO Summicron. 

The 70-200mm S Pro f4 looks good to pair with the 28-200mm indeed, I have the 70-200mm S Pro f2.8 and while it's a sharp lens with pretty good rendering, the size is an issue, at least for me.

Yes and I think you will appreciate the S1RII.
Like I don't record a lot of fast motion, I begin to think I could sell my S1II as the S1RII is easier for me to work, I can get good detail rendering from the H265 8K files whereas I need to shoot almost exclusively in Prores Raw on the S1II because I don't like the weird detail processing on the H265 or Prores files out of this camera. 

 

The 28-200mm has quite a wide sample variation in terms of sharpness and uniformity.

I had to buy two before I had a good one.

What I like about it is the size and weight, for such a nice range in full frame it's tiny.

The optical stabilisation is also very good, especially in video mode - which is super-useful for cameras like the Sigma Fp that lack IBIS.

An alternative (although I haven't tried it personally) on Sony/Nikon is the Tamron 28-200mm F2.8-5.6.

Faster, but heavier and longer. No OIS, but cheaper.

Has anyone noticed with some of the biggest tech reviewers on youtube like Hardware Unboxed or MKHB, there's a trend at the moment for deadpan anti-hype style reviews.

Be careful with that as well, it's a style-change to counteract the falling viewing figures caused by them overhyping everything every day for the past god-knows how many years, as people catch onto it and get bored of it.

Surely the main point is that if you can afford to shoot ARRI Alexa 35 you are not quibbling over software licensing fees over the week(s) long duration of a shoot.

Whereas with Adobe they scavenge £ from grandmothers and students for years and years.

I got it from the resident Berlin Leica Thief.

The book is highly recommended 🙂