Andrew Reid

Thanks for the video Davide, great stuff. I'll feature it on the blog later!

This first hands on is with a pre-production model, so no footage for now. Instead on Wednesday August 5th I will shoot for the first time with the final retail boxed Sony A7R II in Berlin at a boxing academy. Be sure to check out EOSHD for that and the full review next week. The Sony A7R II represents a significant escalation in specs for both stills and video, a truly next generation camera. To kick off my coverage of Sony's 1st 4K internally recording full frame mirrorless model I bring you this exclusive hands-on. Read the full article

Congrats on the NX1. Great camera. That F2 zoom is good too. Get EditReady for $50 and it is pretty painless. RX100 IV overheating mainly in 4K on long shoots, not a problem in the 1080/120fps/240fps modes so far for me. I have used the RX100 IV as a 1080p camera more than a 4K one. It has the best 1080p of anything I've ever used. Like an FS7 but smaller sensor and 1/8th the price. Yes that 1" sensor does give you a bit of a flat image at times but S-LOG helps make it look cinematic if you're good at grading. Really helps get rid of the 'video' look to highlights, better dynamic range, smoother roll off, etc. Digital Bolex also has a Super 16mm sensor but it looks cinematic as hell because of the colour, grain, texture, so it is not all about shallow DOF and you have your 1D C for that anyway My footage from the RX10 II and RX100 IV is coming soon... it doesn't look like camcorder footage! I'll be interested to see how you get on with AF on the NX1. It is occasionally magic but mostly unreliable and doesn't do what you expect given the specs. Same with the RX10 II and RX100 IV though, continuous AF is really quite terrible in movie mode and HFR, but not as disastrous as it would be on a larger sensor like Super 35mm.... so approach with caution I'd say.

My PC goes into a 4K display. Found scaling better on the Mac. Will try it in Windows 10 and hope for the best. Does look slicker and better designed than previous Windows versions, so credit to Microsoft for that. As I don't use Windows Media Player or Internet Explorer is it safe to go for the Windows 10 "N" version? Or does losing those take out important functionality / codecs? Well the rationale is that Media Center was designed for media PCs and not as your main PC audio player or whatever. So I can see why they have dumped it. I can recommend an Apple Music subscription and iTunes 12.1 as a replacement. It's superb. It's the future. You don't need to own your own media files any more when it comes to music and most films. All in the cloud and superb audio quality. Doesn't the XBOX ONE supersede any WMC PC? Surely that is the Microsoft strategy in a nutshell. Cheaper for the user too.

12 stops isn't lame dude. It is only 1 or 2 stops off film!

TONS more coming from RX10 II in the review. RX100 IV is a separate piece but I have had to work on that for past week, time which could have been spent finishing off my RX10 II review!

Final part of the review is coming soon. Delay due to accommodating RX100 IV as well. Spoiler: I ended up preferring the small one!!

The power banks are cool. Just found a 13,200mha one in Berlin for 38 euros that charges my RX100 IV approximately 10x over. Charges it quick too... from nothing to 100% in about an hour and a half.

RX100 MK IV / RX10 II are best for this, hands down. Forget the interchangeable lens mount options if you need a sharp image & moire free. That's a good budget choice. Way off the RX100 IV for quality but not so far off NX1's 1080/120fps, which looks like upscaled 720p anyway.

Note also the very nice positive locking EF mount - why isn't that on the C300 Mk II?

LOL. Pretty good considering it is 2MP on a full frame sensor and 19 micron. There are some sample videos already from the sensor before they commercialised it. Here was the prototype - http://www.eoshd.com/2013/03/breaking-news-canon-announce-new-full-frame-sensor-for-video/ And the videos I'll try and find (only low resolution stuff on Canon website I seem to remember) They also have another specialist chip... a massive 200mm CMOS 40x larger than full frame, that one is in a Japanese telescope - http://www.eoshd.com/2011/09/200mm-canon-cmos-sensor-records-video-in-japanese-telescope/

This camera highlights why Canon have been successful and profitable. Wish I could sell a 2MP sensor for $30,000 and have it all makes sense in eyes of the customer!! There is demand for this camera and it will be lapped up by broadcast and industry. No more infrared B/W shots on Big Brother! Yes they could have sold it to consumers and enthusiasts for $2000... it's only a new sensor, with massive 19 micron pixels (A7S is around 8 micron) but most would have looked at the crappy megapixel count and then struggle to get any use out of the 4 million ISO - even the creative filmmakers we are would have only a very limited use for that! 1 scene out of every 100 kind of thing. So they have done the right thing for business and dollars...this is a specialist use camera for the industry. Is it valid to say "no internal recording and only 1080p for $30,000 - that sucks?" well the customers who will buy this camera for the set of Big Brother or an astrophysicist up in his telescope will say that isn't a valid criticism at all - they will want a live feed off the back of the camera, no need for internal recording, no need for 4K either as delivery will be in 720p or even SD...but it is valid in the sense that there must be quite a bit of margin in this camera!! And it is a shame that Canon are not so innovative in their DSLR imaging at the moment by comparison.

It fits over anything provided you have the means to attach it. No idea what the thread is on those. You will probably have to clamp it like I did with the Kowa. It's no fuss.

Thank you sir! Berlin is a tricky place to live in at times but it's worth it. You think living here is exhausting, try living here and having two jobs, one running EOSHD and one being a filmmaker

This is disgraceful! Keep up the good work Ebrahim. It isn't easy doing anything worthwhile, people will always be jealous.

Yep not out long and £12,000 in April 2013.... £4500 in December 2015

1D C / 1D X body quite a bit bigger than a mirrorless camera so they got away with sticking a big heat sink in it. I think Canon need to wait for their new sensor manufacturing capabilities to come online before they will do it... as they are taking so long over doing that, chances are it might be pretty special and worth the wait. How much longer can one company - Sony - get away without being unchallenged? Yes good point... But then Canon likely believes that their average Rebel customer filming birthday parties and baseball games isn't ready for 4K yet anyway. Nikon certainly said as much on record.

$350? Wow. That is stunning for what you get. Don't forget that sensor is the best APS-C CMOS on the market at the moment, so very good stills camera as well even if the crop in 4K mode bothers you.

Vs the NX1, no mic socket, no headphone jack, crop in 4K, no 1080/120fps (only at 720p), time limit 15min in 4K, no gamma DR, no luma range setting or black level, but yes it is cheap though for such an amazing image and crop you can get used to. Stills quality also unbeatable for the price. I've shot a shootout between the two and it is coming soon in final part of my NX500 review which I decided to resurrect because I rather like the cam for the price. Decided to keep it even though I had the NX1 as it goes in a jacket pocket with a pancake 30mm F2.

I have been out shooting with the SLR Magic Rangefinder. Key features: It completely takes over focus from any prime lensSolves lens breathing (reduces to such low level it isn't noticeable)Adds cinema standard 240 degrees focus ring with FF gearing and hard stopsReduces minimum focus distance of all anamorphic lenses to 1m (even long-throw projector lenses)For those who shoot anamorphic especially this will be music to your ears. These shooters will also be familiar with diopters, which are used to correct aberrations and achieve very close focus. Effectively the SLR Magic Rangefinder is a variable diopter and thus a rather brilliant concept as it is capable of taking over focus from the taking lens entirely. Read the full article

Samsung decided it would be a good idea the camera became a doorstop when connected to HDMI. Why they thought this was a good idea is a mystery!

With LOG comes great power and it is down to the user how good ends up looking. There's a lot of terrible looking LOG footage out there due to the individual grade rather than any codec weakness and I don't think 10bit ProRes LOG from the Blackmagic Cameras looks significantly different or better to 8bit LOG. 10bit is overrated for everything aside from keying. I have graded 10bit from the GH4 to Shogun and didn't see an advantage in the grade even when pushing it to extremes to see what was lurking in the murky depths!! In my view, it doesn't suddenly benefit skin tones. That is more down to the sensor and image processor than 8bit vs 10bit. Take for example 14bit raw as one extreme in terms of colour / bit depth... only way you can go more extreme on the specs than that is 16bit on the Sony F65! To make use of 10bit let alone 14bit and 16bit the sensor has to deliver an extremely wide dynamic range AS WELL AS a massive colour gamut. Now, we already have experience of 14bit with Magic Lantern raw. Is it significantly better than 10bit raw from a Blackmagic in terms of codec or grading flexibility? No. The sensor makes more difference. The sensor in the 5D Mark III is very good, very clean, wide colour gamut. The one in the BMPC is noisy and has a harsh run off into the highlights. Great codec, yes, but 10bit vs 14bit with that same sensor performance would have made very little difference. Now we have a shining example of how good 8bit LOG can look for colour... he is called Mr Canon 1D C. You saw how it compared to the NX1 which I previously sung the praises of for being actually very very nice indeed at capturing vivid, rich, satisfying rec.709 colour. What LOG does for a camera, regardless of 8bit vs 10bit, is quite frankly magic and should be highly regarded. There's 'light LOG' like on the 1D C by the way, which doesn't go as flat as S-LOG and doesn't dramatically change colour, leaving it very saturated. I think S-LOG does go to extremes in terms of dynamic range... but it is not 8bit which causes the weirder colour vs the 1D C is it? Because they are both 8bit codecs! A7S owners, indeed RX10 II, RX100 IV owners can do an experiment. Shoot 4K 8bit LOG video. Shoot a raw still. Grade to match. Compare. Difference will be smaller than you think!

Great post. With all the interest in Canon clearly they do have something to the images, to the colour. And maybe it is true that Sony have sacrificed the overall look to chase dynamic range on a chart. But I think it is more down to colour science than sensor science... Canon's white balance also seems superior. Sony have work to do but they have not been in the photography business very long compared to Canon, who have a heck of a lot of experience to draw on, so it is not surprising really.

Canon reported their most recent quarterly profit today and said that DSLRs continued to face 'severe market conditions' noting yet another slide compared to the same period last year. The firm cut its outlook for the rest of the year. Read the full article

Pre-order the Sony A7R II now - B&H / Amazon Sony have communicated the confirmed ship date of the A7R II to me - the first batch will arrive at stores in Berlin on 5th August! UPDATE: this is now the official thread for A7R II updates, footage and user experiences..