Andrew Reid

I am sure N-LOG will only give a slight bit more dynamic range, and is that worth the hassle of a wobbly HDMI cable and big brick on your small mirrorless camera? For me not. The Nikon Flat profile on the D850 is a thing of beauty, trust me on that Sony need to do a bit more than 4K60 on the A7S III for me to fall in love with it. Electronic ND and ergonomic overhaul maybe. The colour side I have no problem with any more, very happy with what I get from EOSHD Pro Color with it vs my 1D X II.

I believe Cinema DNG is an open raw format that anyone can use. So no they don't have to create their own format or adopt ProRes raw. The USB C interface is very versatile, you can send all sorts over it. In this case just a data transfer in realtime like a PC, containing the raw picture data, not sure of the format on the Pocket 4K. It is something I am pretty sure you will see on more cameras soon after the Pocket 4K comes out. Reliable 4K RAW recording on a mirrorless camera, as easy as plugging in a USB SSD drive. That would be nice. A smartphone with USB C and OLED is essentially the same thing (SSD chipset, processor and screen) and I am surprised a monitor company hasn't taken one as the basis to create an external recorder from. If they have USB C transfer and live-preview, along with the nice long battery life of a modern smartphone (in airplane mode), you will have a screen which is slimmer, lighter and downright better than everything else on the market for people who want to keep the size down.

Panasonic made the firmware for the Leica SL and Leica Q. Some say they made the entire cameras including optics. You could go so far as to say they are Panasonic full frame cameras with a Leica badge. I would expect the first Panasonic Lumix G full frame camera(s) to be similar to the Leica SL but with full frame 4K and the usual Panasonic niceties (i.e. 4K Photo, etc.), overall a packed feature-set and 5 axis IBIS. As a Leica Q and SL user myself, they are ergonomically a total treat and the Q is very light. I would love to see a Panasonic Q with 4K, as neither the Q or Sony RX1R II do that. Very good - classing leading - EVFs on both of them. I wouldn't; have thought they would try and put an 8K sensor in there, that would be around 50MP in 3:2 aspect ratio for stills. We're not quite there yet with a sensor that good and fast enough for 8K video.

This is something I hope we see on a lot more cameras in 2019. I find the external battery and bulk of an Atomos recorder very cumbersome for most shoots and an additional burden to worry about.... Is the cable loose, is it recording, is it setup right, is the battery going to see me through the next take, blah blah blah. With the T5 you just plug it in. Done. Love that it takes power from the USB C port, no other 4K recorders do that. As we already have a plenty large enough screen on the camera, the need for an external monitor / recorder is even less. I will be asking every manufacturer at Photokina about adding USB C raw recording and seeing what they think of it.

Yes N-LOG is external only, so no internal LOG recording like a Sony, which is a bit silly. However the Flat profile is excellent. Nikon's reasoning is that you need 10bit for LOG and an Atomos. I'm not so sure. Canon LOG works pretty well in 8bit doesn't it?

I agree, but that boat has sailed. If they wanted to keep me in the loop, the time to act was straight after NAB! How long has it been announced for now? 5 months? I doubt there's much they can do now to change my mind, short of putting a camera on my desk. Even this simple act seems to be beyond them. They could have thousands of sales from the traffic on this site long-term, but they just don't appear to recognize you or I even exist. Arrogance?

I don't agree with you. There is no risk inviting me to a simple hands-on gathering with a camera and I have been to many before. If you want to read a blog of watered-down PR-lead opinion pieces, there are plenty out there for you to follow instead. Even the risk (of negative publicity) that comes from not inviting me to a hands-on is very low but here it has added up. It rises if the blog has 1 million views since 1 month ago and a 5 year track record of supporting Blackmagic, yet still gets passed over for a simple demo unit. Do you realize, it is a lot of hard work to keep EOSHD going? Then the risk of having your main camera tester / closest DP advisor use the forum for 2 years without acknowledging the site owner A SINGLE TIME adds a little bit as well (just shows a lack of appreciation). Giving demo units to much less known bloggers with much less expertise increases the risk of a frustrated outburst even more, on top of the above and being teased with a camera that won't ship for months. After all that, having an event in Manchester and then John's insults were the straw that broke the camel's back. So Blackmagic really only have themselves to blame if I don't like them very much as a company any more. Best tool for the job is not the Pocket 4K for me. I'll wait for RAW from something else. I don't have an urgent need for it. ProRes is nice. But as certain pros will tell you, it's not enough to just look at the specs sheet and choose a camera, the support from the company is important too as is reliability and whether or not you actually like how the company treats you. A big reason I bought a Leica SL was because they were supportive of EOSHD. It counts for a lot. Doesn't mean to say I not going to be critical about it though, because I spent my hard earned own money on it. When I met the Leica product manager in Berlin, he was very helpful and demoed the new firmware with improved LOG. That meeting came from being critical and basically pointing out that their LOG profile was broken. The same thing applies to Sony, I have been critical of technical aspects of their camera and they listened directly. See below... Yes there is an element of PR about all of this, to try and offer a rebuttal to critical articles and to show they are listening. But there is also an element of truth in it, that they are listening to users and representatives of users, actual shooters, not just "camera reviewers" as John Brawley puts it. There are people out there at the camera companies that value my feedback and I am not going to stop being critical or pointing out bugs, just to please some fanboys.

Honesty isn't important?

It's a great image but like the D850 there is the tiniest of moire / aliasing on full frame wide angle shots in 4K Very detailed though and superb colour. It might pay to wait 2 months for the Z6 especially as it's so much cheaper. Full Taiwanese review here https://www.mobile01.com/newsdetail/26796/nikon-z7?utm_source=youtube&utm_campaign=videoseo&utm_content=5567307 Masses of info, if you use Google Translate.

Blackmagic should just be honest then. I've no problem Asian camera reviewers having a camera, the problem is Blackmagic and John Brawley claim no camera reviewers were given a unit and it's evidently not true is it!

Yes you are hitting the paradox on the head. On the one hand, to be a journalist you need access to cameras. This is usually straight forward for me, because I shoot and buy cameras! But when Blackmagic do their usual stupid Nab "release" 8 MONTHS ahead of the actual "release", it makes everybody a poodle. We don't have a choice but to have the agenda controlled entire by Blackmagic. Even their customers with a pre-order. If Blackmagic want a load of Chinese YouTube coverage instead of an EOSHD or Philip Bloom article, they will get that and you, dear customers, will just have to suck it up. Yes journalists are only human and the aim of the camera companies is the same as it was in the 1960's, wine, dine, schmooze! It is impossible not to water down criticism of a camera however flawed it might turn out to be, and this was fine in decades gone by with TV shows and media organizations, but it goes against the founding principals of how the internet is supposed to function. Individuals on the internet should be able to shrug this personal influence off and stay true to their opinions. It is not happening.

Good post gethin. 100% agreed.

This seems to be a common opinion and not unexpected, but it's a very simplistic reading of the situation. I don't agree that I am a crybaby upset that he doesn't have a free camera, because I really don't need another camera. I have enough of them as it is!! I've wanted a brief hands-on with the Blackmagic Pocket 4K for the past 5 months and have a pent up annoyance over not getting the insight I need to make any useful articles about it. My aim was to share the information with my friends and wider camera community of like-minded individuals AND to somehow think Blackmagic were appreciative enough of my work at EOSHD over the years, to allow me a rare and small privilege occasionally (would have been nice). You say I missed out on a 'press junket' but I didn't see it as a 'press junket'. I felt I should have been told about an opportunity in my own backyard to further my understanding of a camera which had generated interest to the tune of 350,000 impressions on a single forum post at my site. It is an interesting camera to a lot of people out there in 2018 and I also had an interest in it as a customer, like some of you. When it comes to the professional camera press junkets, I honestly still don't give a flying pig about them, or blogging with a selfie cam from a hotel room, it is just not how I want to live my life. I don't care about freebies either, but I do about being able to blog and to have access to the tools I need to do that. You see the paradox? Go and read the Camera Press Balls article again with that in mind. With the Manchester situation, I would have enjoyed to do my friends a service and bring you a review. Those who I count as friends on here, and elsewhere, have the right to get something useful out of this blog. The others, who have no personal regard for me whatsoever and don't support me but nevertheless visit the blog regularly for information, don't really deserve anything whatsoever. I don't owe you anything. I don't owe it to you to change my opinions or not write certain articles. I don't owe it to somebody I don't know and who doesn't really know me, to change my feelings towards a company I feel slighted by. It's called free speech. The complainers on this thread, some of whom claim to have read EOSHD for a long, long time (but to my knowledge have never reached out to me before either on this forum or in real life) should bear in mind how incredibly ungrateful they look to almost everyone else here. They have reaped the benefits of this site (and other people's camera knowledge on the forum) for years and years, but are now shown-up to have absolutely zero gratitude to me or to anyone else for what they have learnt. This is dispiriting for me as the editor, because I wonder why I bother, and it is harmful to the group spirit on the forum as well to have leaches. A difference of opinion is one thing. It's the entitled and cold, robotic "I-expect-Andrew-to-always-provide-for-me" tone that hurts the most. To these people who are upset by the latest article, I don't care if you think the article is "unprofessional" because I literally owe you ZERO professional work. You don't pay for EOSHD like you pay for one of your Blackmagic cameras. Blackmagic and John Brawley are in a exactly the same position as @"Nigel" is and they don't deserve to reap the thousands of sales which have been generated through EOSHD over the past 5 years. Collectively as a company, and as an individual DP, both have shown absolutely zero gratitude or kindness or support. If there was a way with the internet and running a forum, simply to mute the opinions of a great block of people, it would allow me to get on with work in a more positive frame of mind and cater for the people I do actually like and get on with, which is the mostly silent majority. I could be out shooting and reviewing new cameras, rather than bogged down writing this and defending myself all the time. At the end of the day it's my site. I don't owe the uncaring masses or a PR person a damn thing.

Thank you for your cutting edge satire, very original.

I could answer that, but still haven't tried one

Thanks Karim And Dan, yes webrunner is right. It's a cultish following around the Pocket camera. For example, I understand that Facebook targets each post to a subset of my followers on the EOSHD Facebook Page, depending on the subject. It's automatic, I don't have any control over it. But a lot of pitchforks came out for me today on Facebook which confused me because EOSHD supporters, followers and friends don't usually behave like that.... I know why this time was different, because Facebook had targeted a Blackmagic article at the Blackmagic hardcore fanatics and they didn't like what I had to say. As for typical BM roll out, yes it is. Trade shows have less meaning to everybody outside the bubble. Most customers don't want to be teased for half a year or even more before they can get the damn camera in their hands. Blackmagic should stop syncing their announcements to NAB and instead put the announcement out a week before they start shipping. The irony is, here I am feeling upset about being passed over for a camera in my hands... with a hardcore of Blackmagic users saying "what a crybaby EOSHD is" when at the last few camera launches, those very same people were moaning about not having a camera in their hands, because it's late or whatever. At the end of the day, I reflect on the course this thread just took and I regret it. I stand by my hurt over the camera and snub, but I regret what's happened. Take what you read from everyone on forums with a pinch of salt including even yourself whilst saying it! And including me. I am not myself on the internet sometimes, nobody is. The internet is a weird simulation which is causing issues in real society across the globe all the time. It's not real life, it's a machine-assisted facsimile of it. John Brawley and I would not have behaved the same in real life. The internet is an argument generator and a distorted mirror and I might indeed have to shortly go to the pub and have a stiff drink.

Oh dear, pity pity Danny boy. Dan's upset! DAN'S UPSET!

Deary me. Don't overreact! The E-M1 II already had impressive video specs when it came out (quite a bit ago now). The E-M10 III is like that but tiny and cheap, with a different sensor and latest colour processing / chipset. I hope Olympus go from strength to strength. It hasn't been easy for them of late. The camera market can afford to lose maybe Pentax (sad though it is) but to lose Olympus as well would be a disaster. No! I just saved myself £1200!

Cheers. I think it's because these users are more loyal to a brand than they are to a person. I've insulted the shrine of Blackmagic. They are becoming like a poor man's RED cult. Stalin would not be out of place on a pro video camera forum

Pocket Olympus Cinema Camera

Wow quite a few of you going. I'll try to make it There is a nice old camera shop near Photokina in Cologne, good for scouting out c-mount bargains and maybe they'll get the first few Nikon Z7 bodies in Germany That haven't already been pre-ordered that is!!

I can say now the GX9 is a bit disappointing in 4K because of the extra crop (ends-up around 2.5x) and I think it really adds very little for video users over the older and cheaper GX85. I think Panasonic have much better bargains in the range for video. The G85 is not much more for example. I don't have the GX9 with me at the moment, so it will just be an E-M10 III review. It has some mojo in the image I haven't seen for a while at that price and the handling in some ways is more enjoyable than a lot of the high-end cameras. You can switch between 1080 and 4K with a function button sub menu, without diving into the main menus for instance. Perfect detail. Great colour. Solid codec. Wider FOV than GH4 sensor. Seems great in low light too.

Yeah no IBIS is a bit of a deal breaker for me as well. I am just writing a first look at the E-M10 III with 5 axis IBIS, which I just bought from Amazon today. Was only 500 euros but will be interesting to compare to the GH5 considering the big price difference. If it helps out those searching for something really good in the midst of an era of pushing prices up and going high-end, then job done. Unlike the GX9 it doesn't have any extra crop in 4K. Full width M43 2x crop and 1.28x crop with Speed Booster XL. That is a first for the 16MP sensor in an Olympus and I've never had such great out of the camera colour as I have here for 500 euros.

Thank you Glad to help people like you. Not so glad to help certain others on this site. The camera community is like a city and I'm just a citizen like all of you, trying to do my bit for it. Like a real city there will be indifference and lack of gratitude every day at every street corner on display. Block this out and maintain an enthusiasm for living (shooting) is all we can do.

We're a popular forum, we don't need participation for the sake of it mate... If something positive can come out of this, perhaps we can start a new initiative to get some major film industry talents to give advice on the forum - actual top flight cinematographers - in a reddit style AMA? Who would be up for that?