Andrew Reid

I'm all for trying this on the GH5. Is it worth a try? Can someone get me started?

My needs are evolving and the A99 II makes sense for a lot of reasons. If you think it's just GAS then that's up to you... Your call. I do like gear and have a lot of it, it's my passion and EOSHD would not exist without my interest in the gear. You know what is a passion killer... Snipers like you.

If you guys want EOSHD to be all about just 1 camera, I am just glad you're not running the show.

Does it support H.265 hardware acceleration via the GPU or is it a software based implementation?

They are going back to the Mac Pro with modular, upgradable components, plus a Pro cinema display. Good blog to follow on RSS if you want the first updates about this https://daringfireball.net

Dude, there are crews with an Alexa that shoot ProRes instead of raw. Pros are terrified of a slow turnaround on an edit, large file sizes and un-editable codecs. Why do you think internal raw is missing from the C300, FS7, FS5 and a bunch of other popular pro workhorses? At $8000, by mainstream you don't really mean mainstream, rather 'popular within a niche'. This is pure speculation! Just do the maths... 1 hour of footage = 512GB of CFast 2.0 media It will be a top quality card as pros don't risk an entire day's shoot for the sake of saving a few quid. And performance of the card will be a factor. So you are talking £4900 of media to get you through just 7 hours of shooting, assuming you have one camera at the wedding / commercial / live event / interview. If it is two cameras double your costs to £10k. The guy who said you would spend more on media than on the camera wasn't joking!! Now tell me the pro shoots that involve 15 minutes of shooting before it's all over.... Not many of those sir. Yes, you can offload 128GB every 15 minutes, stop the shoot every 15 minutes as a result, or employ a data wrangler armed with a very large hard drive... It's a big expense and hassle either way you look at it and it won't catch on, thus raw will not be mainstream with pros via the C200.

Canon raw lite is not Cinema DNG though. At the moment you have no choice but to turn it into some form of LOG before grading the compressed files instead of the RAW. So it is not really RAW, just a fiddly way of getting 10bit ProRes out of the camera.

Still think it is generous of that business considering amount of use you had out of the camera until it died. How long was the warranty on the NX1 since it is a 2015 camera? 2 or 3 years?

Nobody complains when we compare the FS5 to an A7R II. People need to know what extra they are getting for their money. Sure the market is a bit different and form factor different but there's overlap... You can't tell me not a single pro is using an A7R II or GH5, can you? By that same token, not every pro videography or wedding guy is using the SDI on their C200, whose biggest selling point to many people is the lack of need to rig extras onto it like external recorders and monitors via SDI. Not every pro is using timecode to sync footage between 5 other cameras on a shoot and not every C200 user will even be using the XLRs, some will strip it down to the bare bones and put it on a gimbal, with sound done like it has always been done in the film days - a separate job for another man. So shut up.

GH5 workflow as follows - ALL-I 400Mbit (forthcoming), edit natively like FS7 10bit IPB 150Mbit (current 10bit 4K codec), transcode to ProRes in EditReady C200 workflow - Convert the RAW using the supplied Canon software. You cannot edit the RAW files yet, not even in Resolve 14.

I found a Sony 16-50mm F2.8 for £280 used in mint condition. They regularly go for a similar amount as nobody is using them! Weather sealed, silent AF, constant aperture, perfect for Super 35mm 4K and the autofocus tracking mode.

How are you going to store a year's worth of the original footage? I am genuinely intrigued. It's debatable... Neither are full frame!

So glad to hear this. There are so few cameras that do great looking 120fps, let alone full frame. Leica SL is the only one I know. That Sony have achieved this 120fps from a 42MP sensor is quite a story. The new LSI in the A99 II seems much faster than the one in the mirrorless cameras and shouldn't overheat as much in a larger body. Also great to hear. In terms of autofocus, some A mount lenses do have silent motors, so in terms of the smooth aperture and silent AF these lenses are up there with any e-mount stuff. Does it dim when recording 4K like on the A7S II? Also good to know!! The mushy focus assist on the A7S II was one of the most annoying things about it. Can you still do a focus zoom whilst recording? The advantages of SLT! So you CAN lock the exposure when in AF tracking mode at F3.5? Does the exposure compensation dial work? It can work at F1.4, you just modify the lens. I'm thinking of buying the Sony 16-50mm F2.8, taking the aperture control lever out and using it only at F2.8... Although the change to F3.5 won't hurt the look that much to be honest. Does Nikon require back of lens mount change or is it an adapter ring? Don't forget ZS. There are M42 mount Zeiss lenses from the modern era M42 goes straight on the A99 II and there's no flappy mirror to hit the back of the lens like on Canon full frame DSLRs. I would go Sigma but I fear the AF might not be as good (esp. in video mode) as with Sony's SSM lenses like the 24-70mm F2.8 II. STF is a bokeh improvement right? Does the focus ring turn when focussing like the ZA85? I may sell the 85mm as on full frame, prefer 135mm. 85mm F1.4 is lovely on a crop sensor, like GH5. There's also the Minolta 28-70mm F2.8 for $350 They store 720p thumbnails for clips in the XAVC-S folder structure and yet still show the pixilated thumbnail for 4K in playback mode, to speed up flicking through it... It's stupid though. You can however set it to display very high quality video preview thumbnails in playback mode by going to change the playback mode view in the menus to video... but then you lose sight of your stills!! There has been no firmware update yet, which means one is certainly due. Remove the P-auto limit in AF tracking for video and get the thumbnails sorted in playback mode... anything else? Will suggest these to Sony. 1080/120p is continuous like RX100 V and not just a S&Q mode, right?

Technically, both shoot 10bit but the C200 is really going to be an 8bit camera for 95% of the people who use it. Read the full article

When I sell some of my EF lenses and the 1D X Mark II, I am actually saving money by going A99 II.

Turns out A mount is more adaptable than I thought. M42 adapter focuses to infinity, costs $3 Leica R lenses can be converted at home with $10 kit from eBay and 5 minutes with a screwdriver, just like I converted mine to Nikon. There's some nice Pentax lenses in M42 mount and the legendary Tomioka 50mm F1.2 Helios / USSR stuff can join the fun and there is even a 50mm F2 pancake that fits Helios 44M perfect for anamorphic, so they can play. So it's not all about buying expensive Zeiss A mount stuff, thankfully.

XL with full frame lenses. Ultra with APS-C, otherwise on the XL + APS-C lenses you will get vignetting, regardless of IBIS.

So did I, way back - I preferred A350 over Canon 450D. This was before video. It was a stunning shot getter and best live view at the time. A850 ergonomics to A7R - yes, it was a huge downfall. Why buy Minolta but then choose not to apply ANY photographic DNA to your mirrorless cameras in terms of design and handling? Autofocus isn't everything, but I really do think the A99 II has a few tricks up its sleeve we've not seen yet regarding video AF. Locking the pin wide open on the lens for a start, to avoid the F3.5 limitation. AF is a bonus on this camera. It's already very good. An A7R II with a proper body and not shit ergonomically. Does it get in behind the SLT mirror on the A99 II or did they solve that?

Yeah saw that guy on YouTube. Nice tips, but I still don't understand the technical reasons for P mode with static aperture. SLT AF in video mode has already been proven to work at faster apertures than F3.5 when the lever on the lens is jammed wide open at F1.4 And closing off all the manual controls in P mode is just daft. Fair enough, if you get jerky aperture changes during a shot with the older lenses then lock the aperture, but lock it during the video recording and allow us to choose the aperture in live-view first!

Great work @BTM_Pix On the GH5, maybe we could unlock that 400Mbit 4K mode ahead of time CineLikeD on the GX80 is a great start.

X-T20, tried very briefly, it doesn't have any extra crop in 4K, so an improvement on the X-T2 in that regards, but I think it has a bit more rolling shutter. A6300/A6500 is a 1.5x crop sensor (APS-C, Super 35) It turns into approx. 1.8 or 2x crop in some modes at the higher frame rates... 30fps in 4K and 100-120fps in 1080 Thanks!! Ah so it is for sale? Got a link? How does the EF lens aperture work? Or doesn't it? I agree. Dual Pixel AF is the only one reliable and consistently high performing enough for pro work. Sony's can be quick, but a bit crazy. GH5 isn't there yet. NX1 is definitely 2nd behind Canon but quite a limited range of Samsung lenses to make use of it.

I have done that and like I pointed out in the novel (an internet article longer than 4 words) there's no point because you are still stuck with the crap ergonomics of the A7R II and A7S II. The mirror box isn't useless for video as it has an EVF. The mount isn't as adaptable to other lenses as E-mount, of course, so in that sense the A-mount is a disadvantage but then do you REALLY need more than an 18-35mm F1.8, 35mm F1.4, 85mm F1.4 and 24-70mm F2.8, all stabilised, with superbly fast AF? Come on man do your basics.... A99 II has a built in EVF. It is not a DSLR. It is SLT. There's some really nice manual focus Minolta stuff out there including a class leading 50mm F1.2. I converted mine to EF mount. Will convert it back again now, haha.

Assuming they put lower resolution RAW in there to SD card, that would also be a bad business decision as it would take away appetite for the full 5.7K to external recorder, making it less of a selling point, and the 2.5K spec would come up in reviews unfavourably vs the C200 which does the whole full 4K RAW to CFast thing. I think Panasonic's only mistake is to not have a CFast slot on the EVA1, then they could have given us 4K RAW right from the start. PS was that Mitch Gross doing the Panasonic presentation? I thought he worked for Convergent Design?

I think we all want a 'do it all' camera in a nice form factor. I think Sony have always been stronger on the DSLR form factor ergonomics than their mirrorless cams. And it's not just the controls but the curves of the DSLR body are preferable to sharp, angular corners of the A7 bodies as well, in the hand... as well as the superior grip, much larger. Hmm apparently there is a hack to get the aperture to go wide open in video-AF-C mode instead of F3.5. Although it will still be Programme Auto (auto shutter speed) at least you will be able to do F1.4 in low light. http://www.portreti.lv/how-to-hack-sony-alpha-99-65-77-to-work-with-open-aperture-in-video-mode-autofocus/ You just stick something in the way of the lever on the back of the lens, and take it out when you want to stop down. AF tracking in video mode at F1.4... nice. Anybody know if ISO be set to manual in Programme Auto mode on the A99 II?

Does it make sense? Read the full article