Andrew Reid

It's a case of each to his own. I personally invested tens of thousands of euros and £ into Canon gear over the past few years. It's not true at all to say I never have anything good to say about a Canon lens or camera. The EOS R5 was not for me, it was an unethically marketed product and raising our concerns as paying customers got us exactly ZERO APOLOGY, and in fact a tidal wave of online abuse for our troubles - not for me - but the others involved in the timer and firmware discoveries as well. It's all a bit ungrateful if you ask me. I can only open people's eyes and if they keep them closed, not much I can do about it. It's unfair to call it "pedantic rehashing of bullshit". People have to see things from their own perspective and express their own opinions on here. That doesn't make it bullshit. Eh? It's a valid argument. Who needs 8K and is it needed on a $4.5K cinema camera? I don't see the issue with debating it at all.

They have all missed a trick there. Should have shot everything in 12K and just cropped instead of using lenses!

I think there's a reason the MacBook Retina display even at 16 inch doesn't go beyond 3K. 4K on a smartphone, don't get me started on that 🙂 However I don't think many filmmakers actually care how the masses watch movies, they're more interested in the artistic selection of lenses and the right tool to tell a story and capture a mood. And this is where I think too much resolution, detail, sharpness, hardness and higher frame rates really work against the process of capturing the mood and doing justice to the story. Unless you want unflinching levels of clinical realism. So if I was going for classic or cinematic, I'd stay well away from 8K and probably not even use modern lenses either.

I agree there is a huge gap in the market for a characterful vintage film image, which was everything that the Digital Bolex, original BMCC 2.5K and Magic Lantern RAW were. The megapixel and dynamic range race makes me a bit cold. I don't see what it is doing creatively for watching a film. The crazy resolution is just distracting and emotionally clinical. The dynamic range is at the expense of good colour science and leads to lazy lighting, lack of contrast and piss poor tonality. Something needs to be done to recognise the appeal of a more low-fi cinematic image. If film is going to die out it needs a direct replacement in artistic terms. And that is not 8K RAW on an EOS R5C!

Kai is entertainment to a select niche who like goofing around YouTube tech videos. He isn't an in-depth reviewer.

I see what you mean but there's not the same perceptual benefits. First of course not all 1080p is created equally in-camera, a lot of it was mush. 4K was a big leap for us and our mirrorless cameras because in most cases it's a full pixel readout without binning (although not always). So we got the advantages of a full pixel readout AND double the number of pixels horizontally and vertically. With 4K to 8K it's a story of diminishing returns and getting your eyeballs even closer to the screen and making the screen even bigger. So what are the available common formats for viewing 8K movies today? Well, at 65 inch in the home on a TV you have to move the sofa right up next to the TV to notice a difference in resolution, and none of that extra resolution will serve the story or even the experience all that much. Normal viewing distances in a lounge room with a very expensive and very large 8K TV makes the extra resolution 8K almost unnoticeable compared to 4K. In the cinema with the even longer viewing distances, it's even less. On a PC monitor the difference is more noticeable. But that's not really where I want people to watch movies! They get a better experience in a cinema, with surround sound. Rather than sat at a desk. You know what I mean?!

Crop for a small sensor look. Digital zoom for that YouTube look. What about the cinema look? 8K for cinema falls flat. Only when they are the producer. Passing was on Netflix and on the Oscar short list. It's 1.7K Hmm that's not why the Alexa is popular And Hollywood cinema has the highest camera requirements in the entire industry.

If you're talking zooming and cropping for cinema, count me out. It looks dreadful. Looks like YouTube not cinema. Parfocal zoom optics all the way for that purpose. Oversampling 8K to 4K brings marginal benefit for the audience when they watch this on the big screen. Film viewers aren't the same as pixel peepers. Don't get me wrong, glad we moved on from line skipped moire 1080p. But 4K is a sweet spot and anything more is a bit pointless. For reference see how many Oscar winning films are shot on an Alexa vs the Sony F65 in 8K oversampled to 4K mode. You can on a Sony A1 as well and if you're not bothered about 8K then an A7R IV will produce detailed 4K images in FF/S35 and S16 crop modes for $2500. Nothing unique at all about the images, could have been shot on just about anything else. Just because it has an 8K badge doesn't make it better.

It looks nice because Slashcam have a nice subject. It also looks steadier because slow-mo handheld footage just does. What distracted me the most from the nice subject was the 8K. Every imperfection in the skin and hair just rammed into my retina. And she is far from imperfect looking. What is the point of 8K exactly?!

Refresh rate = frame rate. That is not the same as rolling shutter speed. Is this really a problem unique to the Z9? I don't think it is. I recall Sony cameras had issues too. Would be curious to see how a mechanical shutter handles a 240hz LED ad board at certain shutter speeds. It's probably a solution to try and sync shutter speed or go a bit lower.

Yeah Canon colour science has become modernised and the others have caught up anyway, so that's no longer really the big selling point it once was. Fuji, Blackmagic & Panasonic very nice. Sony still a bit off but certainly improving. Canon-LOG is no longer the best LOG format either. Panasonic caught up nicely with V-LOG and Blackmagic as well. Maybe LOG profiles will become less relevant in future when we're all shooting compressed RAW any way. The pricing is nutty across the board for the RF lenses. £2.5K for a prime lens you can only use on one system is not acceptable to me. I can only imagine what consumers think to that. In the modern world of consumer electronics you could get a really top end Macbook Pro for the price of just one lens like the Canon 50mm RF F1.2. Unless you have existing EF lenses, it's a high premium just to get some fast apertures & AF in the mix. Nikon Z9 is the best all-round body for me. I have a top class autofocus system and editing codec. Fastest full frame sensor on the market. Nice ergonomics and a big battery. With the Fringer adapter for EF lenses, I don't need to go full on and invest in new Nikon Z lenses. It's really reliable on my Z6. On Z9 it will probably be even better. Canon has bet the imaging division on EOS RF mount. EF is dead. All I can say is that it's a good job they have a thriving photocopier division because their camera department is going to shrink back into a niche of pro bodies and lenses. I really can't get over the lack of apology from Canon about the EOS R5 troubles either. Really unethical and arrogant behaviour. Really glad I don't have a dilemma of a really must-have Canon camera I want to buy, so I can be comfortable to continue not to support the liars in that company. Also I don't see a Canon EOS R6 II or Canon EOS R5 II any time soon giving us anything like a big step forward. It will all be little baby steps from here on like it was once the 5D II and EF mount was established. With a Nikon Z9 you're not exactly going to be left wanting for much anyway... What's going to be the big bait and switch once that comes out? Same specs for £2000 from Canon? Not going to happen!

Have you seen how pixilated the UI is through the viewfinder on a Sony? What matters more than EVF dots is the quality of the live-view feed to it. I can't see a downside to the E-shutter on the Z9. Any actual evidence of one? As far as I can tell it has a rolling shutter as fast as a mechanical one, so practically a global shutter or as near as makes no difference to 99.99999999999999% of shots. S1H has all of the extra video features of EOS R5C... LUT support, anamorphic (proper open gate not just desequeze), focus, exposure tools, etc. Personally I prefer to see the shot I am taking rather than a big graph! I will probably never buy another Canon. I don't like the EOS R lenses. They're as bulky and expensive as it gets... Heavier than my medium format GFX lenses.

I think Z9 is close to perfect really. Much better codec than R3 in all respects, both the RAW codec and the 10bit codec. I never use WFM, false color, all it really does is distract from the composition. You don't even need to nail exposure with Prores RAW. As for focus, with AF as good as the Z9 offers you don't need any of the focus aids, and with manual focus I don't even use peaking any more because EVFs are such high res these days. I don't see what the EOS R5C offers over the Z9 apart from some camcorder gimmicks and a big frustrating delay between modes, not to mention a worse codec and no IBIS! I'd take the Z9 over it any day for stills as well.

It's not about matching the formats though. They are stopping down to F3.5 on medium format and using just that example to say - "hey it looks the same as APS-C" They are denying the differences that exist between sensor size and lens combinations. There is only one good test that shows how depth of field differs between formats: Use same lens, same focal length, same focus point, same aperture, different sensor sizes.

It's all fine in theory but it ignores the reality. In reality you simply have different lenses designed for different formats. You cannot mimic the look of a Canon 50mm F0.95 Dream Lens from the 1970s on full frame by taking a different lens with equivalent focal length and aperture on another size sensor because: A) One doesn't exist B) If it did exist, it would not be a Canon from the 1970s C) The hand of the original optics designer matter D) The rendering is unique to that original lens. Not even the Leica Noctilux 50mm F0.95 looks anywhere near close to it. Also there are certain lenses that don't even fit a Speed Booster. There is simply no room for a focal reducer between Leica M mount lenses and any of the mirrorless mounts of today. If I have a special lens that is only at its best on the sensor size it was designed to match then I am stupid to use it on something else. Equally if I have a LOMO anamorphic that simply doesn't cover full frame, how exactly would I try to mimic the look in any other way on my full frame camera without cropping? So Yedlin's theory can go and do one to be quite honest. There's a lot more to the look of a large format than matching DoF. What exactly does he define as the look? Of course the look is not just shallow DOF. Far more depends on sensor size and format than that. Yeah well different lenses were used weren't they? So hardly surprising... Even if you go crazy about matching everything with equivalence you will need to use different focal lengths and apertures, and if you are using prime lenses that means you need different lenses for different camera formats.

It's an upgrade if you don't need IBIS and don't need a quick way to switch between video and stills!

It happened to me once with a few lenses that I had stored for 6 months in a basement in Berlin. Just one week before I was due to come back and clear it out, there was a big storm and some water got into the basement. It only took a few days of moist atmosphere to set the fungus going in 4 or 5 unfortunate lenses. So absolutely keep lenses in as dry a place as possible! Interested to see how you go about fixing it, I'll be looking at doing the same to mine as not had the opportunity to do much about them since.

It's almost impossible to tell that review apart from a marketing video.

IBIS has an off button. Why go and take it out?

It's not a vintage gear competition is it though? It's about smallest and lightest possible, even if it's a big compromise on image quality. It's how you use it that counts. I will try and get time this week to start the competition on front of the blog, then we can put some basic rules for point scoring down (nothing strict) and get shooting!

Yeah it was an eye opening moment that. It's a good lens on full frame as well, but the magic of the GFX 100 is it elevates certain lenses to a more interesting place. Makes them a bit more unique. I still haven't used the 35-70 on full frame, it's been permanently GFXed!

@kyeyup very clever what you can do in post to manipulate the image as far as computational optics go. For the sake of this thread though I think we should keep to the original topic. Feel free to open a separate thread for the other stuff, and if @Djangocan stop arguing with you that would be a plus. iPhone does computational optics in realtime, and there are apps to emulate anamorphic bokeh and all that sort of thing. Maybe in future with 8K, sensor size, focal length and FOV will ALL be computational, with smaller sensors or telephoto lenses being a crop with a depth map for computational bokeh. Until that day comes, we live in real world of real optics and real sensor sizes. Hopefully we can get back on topic, which was the unique depth of field of medium format and Chris from DPReview's video.

No, a lot of them cover 44x33. Especially 85mm or longer. Sigma ART 85mm F1.4 EF mount for example barely even has any brightness fall off at, in corners. Canon FD 85mm F1.2L is sublime. It's nice enough on full frame but on medium format takes on a whole new dimension. DPR wouldn't even bother to scratch the surface of these kinds of combos in their videos. Also Minolta tended to design a larger image circle, for better corner sharpness on full frame - side effect of that is they don't vignette as much on an even larger sensor. One thing to bear in mind with some of the really fast full frame lenses is they're not very sharp wide open so a crop sensor will magnify the aberrations and softness. That's why Contax Zeiss 85mm F1.4 on GH2 back in the day was always best at F2 for detailed shots and ninja star bokeh, and F1.4 for softer portraits and people shots. It was two lenses in one with two completely different looks at different apertures. So it is not just about sensor size but aperture as well. Not even talking depth of field differences but bokeh as well. Plus much lighter to carry round than a 170mm F1.4 on full frame would be. It gave the GH2 a handy leg up in dim light.

On the other side of the argument, it's not quite that simple either There are magic combos of mismatched sensor size and glass. This, granted, is more a matter of taste than anything to do with peak performance or corner sharpness. But I love the Contax Zeiss 85mm F1.4 on Micro Four Thirds as a fast telephoto, whereas on full frame I find it to be merely another portrait lens of which I have plenty. Usually it doesn't work like this. I find 50mm lenses on 2x crop sensor to be a no-mans land. The Canon 50mm F1.2L on APS-C and Micro Four Thirds I find lacking all that's nice about it on full frame. And what is basically a crap old boring £60 lens on full frame can really come to life on medium format. Minolta MD lenses for example. This is why you can't discuss a lens separately to image format. And this is why Chris & Jordan don't have a clue about depth of field or medium format. Maybe we could turn the spotlight back onto that. The fact that such a big proportion of the camera community is happy to idolise two ex-salesmen who don't even have a basic artistic understanding of photography and cinema.

Not to criticise, however that can't really be done, but they are absolutely 100% linked. If you only see the centre crop of a painting, the composition is different, the brush strokes are different, you're not able to discuss the aesthetics of the whole thing So you can't discuss a lens without adding sensor size to the discussion, or at the very least the sensor format it was designed for.