Andrew - EOSHD

This was just an attempt by Nikon to bring the cost of buying the patents down.

RED never actually lost a case in court, or ever had the patent invalidated. Settling, and choosing to sell, is very different to losing a legal battle for a patent that didn't stand up.

11 hours ago, Anaconda_ said:

This anti-fascist tool is apparently also an admission to being a terrorist. 

https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/ice-making-list-of-anyone-who-films

Of course they know how powerful this anti-fascist tool is and will try to make it unlawful, or an excuse to kill. As the SS saying goes that Kristi Noem is so fond of... "One of ours, all of yours"

BTW has anyone ever tried logging out of YouTube, enabling UBlock Origin and putting a few choice keywords into the YouTube home page? It is incredible what the 'other side' is seeing and the sheer amount of propoganda Google is feeding them.

When there's the equivalent to the Nuremberg trials, the Google execs should be taking the stands and going down with the rest of the fuckers.

On 1/19/2026 at 8:21 AM, Anaconda_ said:

Suddenly everyone can put compressed raw into their cameras without having to argue with RED?

Except it's Nikon now isn't it? A Japanese company owns the patent.

Europe voiding the US patents of a Japanese company...

Now that is very risky politics.

Replacing a leech like VISA as just one example should absolutely be done but I don't think it's a lack of self confidence, I think it's just really tough to do, both legally and in terms of the policy and the politics of it, the EU has always been about encouraging big American corporate types to come in and set up shop, and invest, so it would send a very bad message to all US businesses that they're no longer welcome to invest billions in the European economy, and it would cost a heck of a lot of European jobs as well if they all pulled out, they are such big companies. Practically it would be almost impossible, like taking the egg out of a pancake mixture.

I personally though, as a consumer, want to see many of these big companies gone.

I want to see eBay vanish or be forcibly bought by the EU and split up into multiple European companies, PayPal can fuck off, VISA, Mastercard, many of the US banks, all can go and do their business elsewhere as can Tesla. There are numerous US companies that have a near-monopoly or duopoly, or act like a cartel. Some have built valuable infrastructure, like Amazon - both in terms of physical goods distribution, and online with their cloud services. Kicking them out would be very unpleasant for Europe and for jobs... But it might have to be done if the US doesn't change course.

6 hours ago, sanveer said:

Apparently the UK has the strongest censorship for online posts. As bad the present US admin for in-person free speech. It apparently had the highest arrests per thousand in the world. 

At least we're not checking people's political persuasion and social media history at airports.

If the online posts are right wing incitements to violence, I am on the side of the police.

While I disagree with some of the heavy handed methods used, there are certain people who deserve to be prosecuted and only have themselves to blame.

And at the same time, the government is also making bad decisions, and some decisions that are straight out of the right-wing playbook rather than what you'd normally associate with a centre-left Labour government.

For example the whole approach to the pro-Gaza protests has been baffling, the arrest of peaceful anti-genocide protesters completely wrong, the overzealous roll out of facial recognition technology is wrong, the attempts to roll back encryption, all quite wrong and the police getting involved with online 'hate speech' resulting in them arresting people like Graham Linehan for his opinions, just because a lot of people find him offensive. (It's a real pity that he chose to die on the anti-trans hill and it's classic depression... why couldn't he keep giving us more IT Crowd and Father Ted instead?)

The government is reviewing the hate speech policing and quite rightly too... https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2922w73e1o

But when it's online literal nazis inciting people to attack others, they deserve to have the police at the door and I've no problem with it. That's less about censorship, than it is about law and order.

8 hours ago, mtol said:

There's an interesting conversation to be had about the limitations of images to create positive change in the world, but there's also a conversation to be had about the technical limitations of our gear. What gear is really war-ready?

I've long thought that camera manufacturers need to implement some kind of in-camera encryption for serious documentary work. Clearly, filming events like these is crucial. But what happens when your gear is seized in a politically sensitive context?

This sir, is a very good point.

8 hours ago, mtol said:

What happens when a fascist state can use high resolution images that you capture to criminalize the people you're documenting, to find and hunt down other witnesses? The camera can be a liability too.

And what could be done to upload footage automatically, or a proxy, in the event that the seized gear never comes back? Other than everyone streaming everything live all the time, which carries its own risk.

Ideally for these situations there should be a mode which transfers automatically to an encrypted server at home and the camera never stores anything, so if it's taken captive, there's nothing to see.

Looks great 👍

Is it still on the Play Store?

16 hours ago, eatstoomuchjam said:

Would you limit storage space for uploads and/or remove videos after a certain amount of time on the platform?  Storage tends to be one of the biggest difficulties cost-wise for a video hosting site.

Vimeo was probably one of those American tech platforms that never existed to make a profit, only to grow, backed by generous venture capital funds. It's the Amazon model. Lose money for decades and finally become so massive and big that you can finally at the end make some huge profits with a diverse business (i.e. not just books!)

With Vimeo they were number 2 only to YouTube so the server costs must have been astronomical.

With a return of the same concept, personally I'd do it differently. I'd make sure the subscription fee covered all the costs and made a profit which could be invested back into growing the business, rather than relying on corporate socialist handouts from banks.

As for storage - you get a finite amount, and you have to delete the junk yourself to keep your account in order, or delete old stuff that never gained any views. There's a lot of waste on platforms like YouTube, a lot of junk like live streams that have 2 hours of dead air in them (just a camera pointed at a stage for example).

16 hours ago, eatstoomuchjam said:

Keep in mind that you don't store just one copy of the video at the resolution that was uploaded.  You store multiple copies of the video at progressively smaller sizes - so if somebody uploads 4k, you will end up storing at least 1080p and 720p copies as well - as well as potentially 2.5k and 480p copies depending.

These lower res copies pay for themselves in reducing the bandwidth bill.

16 hours ago, eatstoomuchjam said:

People don't usually expect their videos to stay on the site for only 1 year.  So even if you're able to stay even at £60 ($82USD)/year for a year or two, as long as people are uploading and not deleting things, your costs will keep increasing.

I think it balances out. Some users will use storage all the way up to the cap, some will stay well under it, so it's all about the average.

16 hours ago, eatstoomuchjam said:

That's also not to mention transfer and CDN costs which are also potentially high.

Yes but let's say 100,000 users paying £60/yr that is 6 million quid a year, which should more than cover the hosting costs 🙂

16 hours ago, eatstoomuchjam said:

Imagine having a single very popular creator who uploads a daily 20 minute video in 4K quality which is then streamed by 1 million people every day.  Will you still charge them just $82/year even though they're costing you a lot more than that?

No definitely not, it's all about the average views, everyone subsidises each-other, so when you have a breakout success it's covered.

YouTube benefits from massive economies of scale but look at the cost of Premium. It's as low as $4 per month in some countries like India, with vastly more bandwidth and storage requirements than a niche filmmaking site, but YouTube still makes enough money from it to run the platform with no caps and take down ads for those users.

16 hours ago, eatstoomuchjam said:

To make it worse, storage costs are increasing a lot - thanks to the AIpocalypse for RAM which impacts SSD's as well... and since SSD's are up, hard drives also went up since the big players are buying more of them instead of SSD's.

This is where decentralized options like PeerTube start to become tempting - though they suffer the problem that a chunk of the content can vanish because a single operator gets tired of paying a lot of money to host others' content.

It's a temporary increase in RAM and SSD prices, it'll all go way down when the AI bubble bursts in a few months.

I don't think peer-to-peer can work for a Vimeo-clone.

For exactly the reason you mentioned above :)

Look at the difference between societies with widespread smartphone camera use and functional internet, compared to somewhere like Iran where over the last few weeks 12,000 citizens, women, young men, murdered by the regime but hardly any images or footage coming out = world ignorance. I barely saw any news coverage at all.

If the only purpose of the camera is to create shock and outrage, that's one thing. More useful, is it keeps a watchful eye on what the authorities get up to and when they lie it's harder for them to pass off their bullshit.

Also the Leica M10 is a documentary camera that just so happens to also create stylish art, rather than the hyper clear smartphone look, so the stuff that produces is fit for the history books - which cherry pick the most iconic images.

Of course number one objective must be to stay safe but if you have a chance to open your eyes and look around in these historic times, never pass it up.

1 minute ago, fuzzynormal said:

I wish video documentation would stop it.

I'm more optimistic than you on this front.

Unusually, Petapixel and DPReview have found a backbone and posted some interesting stuff in relation to the Minneapolis protests.

https://www.dpreview.com/interviews/6336791578/john-abernathy-pierre-lavie-protest-photographers-ice-minneapolis-thrown-leica

Imagine for a moment if smartphones and this Leica didn't exist.

All we'd have to go on is the lies coming out of the federal government and they'd easily be able to smear the dead and do the big cover-up operation they're attempting to do now.

But the images all around social media tell a different narrative.

And I for one commend the bravery of the folk on the streets with their cameras.

The truth is constantly being debased and it really took the biscuit last week with Trump's denial of British and NATO troops service in the Gulf War, Iraq War and Afghanistan. They were on the front lines and gave their lives for it.

To anyone still thinking of voting Reform in the UK, or for those who voted for Trump at any point, surely your eyes are not still CLOSED after what you are seeing in recent weeks? If yours are, I'd be fascinated to know why.

On 1/19/2026 at 8:21 AM, Anaconda_ said:

I just read a report that in retaliation to Greenland threats, European leaders are planning to introduce trade blocks with America, and part of that is a potential voiding of American patents. What could this mean for the camera industry? Suddenly everyone can put compressed raw into their cameras without having to argue with RED? 

https://en.people.cn/n3/2026/0119/c90000-20415649.html
"The mechanism would allow immediate retaliation, including punitive tariffs, market bans, financial sanctions, and the suspension of U.S. patents and licences, without recourse to the United Nations or the World Trade Organization."

The US government twats underestimates how angry Europe is over the greenland BS and the damage we can do.

The EU and UK are one of the biggest economies in the world along with China and the US.

I am not sure why the US would want to piss us off.

But we could ask Canada and Australia to join a customs union.

We would even go all the way and have them join the EU.

UK could rejoin too.

We could sell the trillion dollars of US bonds and crash the US economy.

But what is rarely talked about is the US services industry.

They are deeply embedded in European life but this might change.

VISA, Mastercard, Apple, X and many American banks could suddenly find themselves kicked out of Europe and replaced by European companies.

Imagine the damage that would do to the Americans. eBay and PayPal would lose almost half of their global market share.

I would argue that social media is due a re-invention as well. Everybody hates what it has turned into (basically crap addictive television).

Facebook is no longer a place where you hear from friends. It always promotes clickbait, professional content creators and ads above what your friend's post, and the stories on Instagram have stolen what Instagram started which was a linear feed of photos, and turned it into TV. As entertainment it works fine, but it undermines the original concept of what Instagram was supposed to be and why people liked it.

I would have a cross between Flickr and Instagram for photographers, with decentralised hosting and no Meta copyright BS.

Interesting mentions, but it needs not to be a general dumping ground for any kind of content, it needs to be laser focused on filmmakers / artists / DPs and musicians, exactly like Vimeo was in the very early days with the full community aspect built in, comments threads, forums and really good portfolio curation. Staff Picks has to be there (under a different name of course), as a launchpad of careers like it was at Vimeo.

There is no reason why it can't work again.

YouTube is dominant, won't be going anywhere.

So it shouldn't even try to compete with that.

The unique selling point is the ad-free viewing, original file downloads and community aspect, as well as that laser focus on filmmaking & cinematography of all kinds.

A niche site for artistic filmmakers that costs £60 per year ad-free, that isn't just another copy-n-paste YouTube or Frame.io is what's needed now!

Any interest in gathering ideas for a crowdfunding?

Time for a UK / Europe Based Vimeo alternative then. Time to make our own.

1 hour ago, BTM_Pix said:

Incidentally, FujiFilm have announced a new instax camera today that is already boiling the piss of many people in the same way as the X-Half does.

It’s basically a video focused version of the Instax Evo but retains the printer and is based on their Fujica cine cameras of the past.

The dial on the side let’s you choose the era of look that you want to emulate.

 

So it shoots video which transfers to the app and then it prints a key frame still from it complete with a QR code on it that people can then scan to download the video from the cloud.

It looks beautiful and based on my experience with the X-Half, if they made this with that larger format sensor (sans printer obviously) then I would be all over it for all the same reasons as I love the X-Half.

 

I really like the idea of the time travel dial

A really elegant way of switching the look.

Good to see the Super 8 / Bolex form factor make a come back as well.

Fuji of course, now should do a high-end version of this with Cinema DNG.

4 hours ago, feanorfinwe said:

Wow. Yes.

That's a perfect example of when you get your exposure wrong by 5 stops.

4 hours ago, feanorfinwe said:

The dynamic range in this shot is about 3.5 stops!

On 12/29/2025 at 9:47 PM, FHDcrew said:

I just freaking bought this thing.  I so agree with you.  The camera is unbelievable for the price.  I genuinely will never need anything more than what this camera has.  Lowlight was quite impressive.  And I'm coming from having shot on the OG Nikon Z6 for nearly 4 years; that camera was very good in low light.  Like "lets shoot a wedding reception at 25,600 ISO" level good.  And on this G9 II...you can actually use it at 12,800 if you are fine with some somewhat pleasing grain, or just denoise the image in Davinci.  Cleans up easy.  Colors are VERY thick. Dynamic range is great.  IBIS is the best I've ever used.  E-stabilization high is amazing and crops less than 1.3x according to my tests.  Planning on getting the Panasonic 12-35 2.8 OG and the 25mm 1.7 and pairing those two together for a nice compact kit.  I think its the most underrated camera of 2025.  A real steal.  Also I consider this camera to be a real tempting alternative to an FX30.

Once they brought the price down it made so much more sense to me, $2k region was always asking just a tad too much for a Micro Four Thirds camera, at least that was the perception.

But this now has the specs of a $6k camera, only it's a Micro Four Thirds size sensor.

So even at $2k it's a good deal.

At nearly half that it's a total must-have.

In the old days, the smaller sensor lacked dynamic range, low light performance and decent autofocus.

This is just not the issue it used to be, gap has closed up.

It turns out I am a bit wrong.

... That Micro Four Thirds was dead. Well near me, the G9 II came down to a much more sensible 1299 so I thought I'd give it a try.

This thing... oh my gawd.

Feel like putting the rest of my gear in the bin!

This little box of joy is pure art in the handheld 4K/120p mode (and also in 5K open gate). The colour science, slow mo and IBIS are so, so good. The new GH7 sensor is quite something. Beautiful filmic quality to it.

And I thought IBIS was good on the full frame Panasonic cameras or Olympus OM-1 but this is taking the biscuit now.

You can just stand there and get a completely static frame especially in 120fps. I keep putting shutter at 1 second for long expose stills, pin sharp...The first camera that can really lay claim to being a tripod killer, in my view.

Then there's the image processing... It totally defies the price. The new sensor just looks so clean in low light and dynamic range is fantastic. The real-time LUTs look stunning here. No other Micro Four Thirds camera has nearly as good colour processing (except the more expensive GH7), so in this sense I prefer it even to the Olympus OM-1 with the lovely Olympus skin tones.

In some ways it is better than a flagship $4k full frame cam... I am not joking.

Not missing a full frame sensor that much to be honest. It has the dynamic range, the low light, the resolution, and with a fast enough lens... the full frame look as well. The Metabones Speed Booster 0.64x fits without scraping the sensor-box.

Also, the EVF is enormous and totally defies the price.

Criticisms? Autofocus is very lens dependant - it's still a bit rubbish with the older stuff and adapters. Also no ProRes LT like the X-H2... With two SD card slots, it limits you only to 1080p in ProRes mode which is a bit silly... but the high-res stuff is available if you plug in an SSD via USB. GH7 has an advantage there for sure.

But in plain old 10bit H.265 the image is superb.

I think this body design suits the smaller lenses too... You know I'm not the greatest fan of the S5 II body design, well it is growing on me here... Micro Four Thirds and small stuff seems to go well with the G9 II / S5 II body design. It starts to make more sense. The sharp angles cut in less, camera as a whole is lighter, the grip is sufficient for everything and it's got that "GH2 feel" when you put the tiny 20mm F1.7 pancake on there whereas the S5 II with the larger lenses doesn't have that same charm to it.

I am inclined to say Micro Four Thirds LOOK is back too... It's an antidote to predominance of a super shallow depth of field in commercial work and Netflix.

It really makes me want to fully commit again to the system as it just does SO MUCH, far more than any full frame camera remotely affordable.

It does more than a Sony a1 II FFS!

14 hours ago, lalan45 said:

First is the do-it-all, high-spec work camera. This is the one you use when clients ask for serious specs like 4K/120p or even 8K, or when you just want the best possible image quality. Cameras like the EOS R5 II, Nikon Z8, Sony a1, or Panasonic S1R II fit here. They’re expensive, but they can handle almost anything.

Having owned (and sold) a lot of the high-end stuff I have given up a bit on the idea of an 'end-game' camera, because limitations breed creativity and part of the enjoyment of camera tech is experiencing 'camera culture', all the rich tapestry of ways to get an image and how different tools inspire different shooting styles, altering the creative vision.

So when you lock yourself into 1, or even 3 capable models, you always yearn for something more weird. Well, I do anyway.

Everyone should have an old beater camera for instance where carrying flashy experience gear makes you nervous. I always feel tense with an expensive camera, if an accident happens, or it gets nicked, it'd be a fucking disaster.

Everyone should try an old CCD model, they do have a different look. I recommend original Canon 1D with Panasonic APS-H CCD, Minolta 5D or a Canon Powershot G10.

And the reason you can't stick to just one format is there's so many nice and unique lenses for other sensor sizes.

Actually that's where a Sigma Fp-L comes in handy with the crop modes and Cinema DNG 4K even at 2x crop for the Super 16mm look and C-mount lenses.

I'm still in favour of small sensor options, like a Panasonic G9 II or Olympus OM-1... Full frame look is not always what you want.

3 hours ago, John Matthews said:

I'm a little surprised that the S5 or S5D didn't make a mention. Pick it up for about 550 euros new and get one of those nice Konica lenses- you're ready to go for under 600. Get BlackMagic recorder and you'll even get B-RAW.

It's a bit of a vanilla option when you can get a used S1 for same price which is same spec but a much more premium body, or pay a bit more and get an S9 with PDAF

3 hours ago, Ninpo33 said:

Honest question, Do you really think people would notice if you center cropped your 4k or higher 16x9 videos to vertical for social media?

You can crop whatever but it's much more difficult to shoot & frame vertical video 16:9 than in open gate.

And nobody seems to want to turn the camera 90 degrees

16 hours ago, BTM_Pix said:

OK, we open a  DJI drone shop in one of the Canadian border towns and Americans come across, buy one but only take the controller back with them.

As soon as they are over the border they message us and we switch their drone on, put it on the roof of the shop and then they fly the fucker over the border themselves.

 

Much more doable than same ploy at the Mexican border.

Black market import shenanigans anyone?

https://petapixel.com/2025/12/23/us-government-bans-new-dji-and-other-foreign-made-drones/

@stephen

Thanks for the heads-up on the iPhone raw Cinema DNG app. Is it by the same people (or associated) with Motion Cam?

Phones are not meant to replace mirrorless cams for video, and the file sizes in the raw video apps are of course enormous.

But you have to admit the image is rather lovely and it's fun to play with.

I like that it is open gate with optional 18fps mode, you can get very close to a vintage super 8 look with that.

Interested to compare it to Blackmagic Video app LOG in terms of the unprocessed look though.