Andrew Reid

The Lytro was a step too far even for me! The category of cameras from MPB lost by DHL continues to be a thing. Soon there might have to be a new category... Free MPB stock as compensation for fuckups.

I think all needs can be broken down into 3 cameras. So first we have a do-it-all high spec camera, such as EOS R5 II or Nikon Z8, Panasonic S1R II or Sony a1. If your client is asking for 4K/120p you'll be able to deliver. If your creative endeavor needs 8K and so on... Or you just want the absolute maximum image quality for $3k+ But second we must have an art camera. That's for taking on trips and personal strolls around town, bit of street photography but high fun factor, unique ergonomics, plus good enough video to capture nice 4K in low light, perhaps with decent autofocus. I'm thinking Fuji X-Pro3, Sigma BF or Fp-L or Fuji X100 VI. If you don't care about video on this camera then Sony RX1R is a lovely walk-around artistic camera with a high fun factor. Then third we absolutely do need a high-end smartphone camera. Of course 3 doesn't cut it for a lot of professional work situations, so your choices might vary! But these I reckon are the main categories. Just depends on price. You can get a good high spec work camera for much less than $3k like the Fuji X-H2S. If I were to add a fourth category it would be a medium format camera, such as the GFX 50R, GFX 100 or a Hasselblad. But so far I have about 25 categories in reality... High-spec all-rounder (Z8, EOS R5, GFX 100) Art cameras (Sigma Fp-L, X100 VI, Sony RX1) Retro digicams (Powershot G6, and about 500 others) CCD cameras (Olympus E300, E-1, Hasselblad H3D II Kodak 39 megapixel and others) Foveon cameras (Sigma Merrill stuff) Infrared modded cameras (in my case took the IR cut out of my RX100 IV and Panasonic GX80) Impulse buy cameras Cameras I have bought twice Cameras bought to sell for a profit Latest cheap camera that I end up not needing DSLRs DSLRs with Magic Lantern Raw Video Sony E-mount cameras for Leica AF adapters Zoomy cameras with fixed zoom lens (FZ1000) Broken cameras I am trying to fix at the moment Run & gun shot getters with a smol sensor (Nikon V2) Cameras with a CD drive (Sony Mavica) And compacts with a flash and CCD sensor for the Polaroid look I am forgetting anything?

What I always wonder about these tests is if you have skintones in the shot that are 5 stops under exposed, what the heck are you trying to achieve with the overall shot and lighting?

Nothing against students but you can tell they are part-timers at MPB.

Enjoy. Do you prefer cinema when it's busy or borderline empty? I think I prefer to go on quiet days.

I've put three chat sticky threads up to talk about 3 quite different subjects. This is for when we just want to chat and talk general things.

Official EOSHD chat thread for the arts and cinema.

I don't think a tradeshow video will be troubling Sundance.

They had the C200 but it didn't really go anywhere.

The C300 form factor is obsolete, too big and clunky when you want to be discrete and mobile. Cinema EOS is also being hampered by RF mount. Not enough choice in video orientated lenses at all the price brackets.

Hasselblad would do well for high-end stills focused stuff and DJI for the Sony-type mirrorless stuff. The X1D would have been a no-brainer now it is almost under £2k used but the slow electronic shutter and lack of lens adapters means it is still a mega expensive proposition with the native lenses. The moment DJI bring out a nice full frame mirrorless camera in the a7 mould with Hasselblad colour profiles, that's it for Hasselblad in the sub-£5k market so may as well focus on the expensive Leica-end. Although again going back to the brand recognition and marketing angle of this topic... DJI would do well to keep DJI off all their non-Drone, non-Gimbal cameras and use a Hasselblad badge instead whether it costs $1k or $6k. Also the Oneplus / Oppo tie-in is quite nifty so keep that going.

This is quite an eye opening chart.. https://ymcinema.com/2025/03/06/the-cameras-behind-sundance-2025-documentaries/ In the earlier days of Cinema EOS the C300 and C200 were all over the documentary filmmaking scene. Now it is all Sony... a7 series and FX. Has Canon mismanaged transition from Super 35mm to full frame in the cinema world? It is beginning to look like it. Meanwhile Panasonic are not in the chart, which is a shame as the GH1 pioneered documentary style shooting with mirrorless cameras and a large sensor, when everyone else were shooting pro ENG or camcorder small chip.

I knew I'd forgotten someone. Hasselblad should expand the line-up, the current choice of two cameras is a bit naff. X-Pan digital would sell like Russian oil to Trump. DJI are perfectly placed to do a hybrid mirrorless camera as well.

A good summary of what makes the Z8 such a good allrounder. Still cheaper than a used Sony a1 but an even better camera in some ways. https://www.zachnicholz.com/blog/nikon-z8-review

Yep it's needed but a big job, more than I can handle. Some off topic is fine by me, just not every other post and really long uninteresting diversions into what someone had for dinner.

Sony and Panasonic without the film heritage but there right from the start with digicams. Sony always put the Sony logo on the body. Panasonic didn't do this, and I suggest it's Lumix that's the problem not Panasonic. "Lumix" doesn't have the worldwide brand recognition of "Sony". The problem is Panasonic doesn't have the brand appeal of Sony or Nikon either. They were never quite there in Hifi, Walkmans, game consoles, and so on... Panasonic are bigger in white goods and appliances, like LG, where Sony has always put the emphasis on consumer electronics and gadgets. I'd rate the camera companies brands in order of camera-ness like this... 1. Leica, they're as synonymous as it gets. Panasonic should buy the brand. 2. Canon, for they are the most popular 3. Nikon, for being second only to Canon in terms of success 4. Sony, for pioneering the digital market from the late 90s onward - but no SLR or film heritage unless you count the Minolta buy-out. 5. Fujifilm. Arguably should be higher but their film-era SLRs were rubbish and they didn't catch the mainstream wave of DSLR says with the niche S5 Pro and so on. They were known not as a camera company but for film. Nice digicams aside, Fujifilm are only a recent success story in digital. What saved them was getting into mirrorless with the X100 and X-Pro in early 2010s. Then I rate the dead brands highly... Kodak RIP Olympus RIP Minolta RIP Contax RIP Lumix RIP (only joking) And then in no particular order there's a lot of variation between what's an active brand (Lumix) and what's camera-ness (Pentax). Obviously Pentax is a high-cameraness brand, you will hardly think of microwaves with them. But today they are almost anonymous on the market, from a top 5 brand to basically nowhere and nobody can decide if it should be called Rioch or not. Sigma. Very high lens-ness, not so much cameras, still a niche. OM System. Feels like a Temu Olympus Panasonic / Lumix on their cherished 5% market share doing admirably but never seem to be capable of troubling the top 5 despite great specs, pioneering models and a loyal bunch of customers. Did I forget anyone?

This is an interesting point about the lenses. Also Nikon DSLRs I seem to remember had weird quirks with the aperture in video mode which took them an age to change. Cameras design has two major fields... ergonomics and tech specs. Get both right and you have a good chance of producing something nice. Which is what the Z8 has achieved. The best ergonomics and best tech specs. Now the third thing is price and if you can do flagship specs and the best designed camera for cheaper than your rivals can, the only things stopping people buying it are lenses and brand loyalty, which are tough issues. Panasonic for example has a brand and lens mount problem, in a way they always had during MFT as well. Nobody can decide if it's a LUMIX or a Panasonic. Or whether Panasonic stands for LUMIX or kitchen appliances. Nobody can quite be comfortable switching wholesale to L-mount, they don't know how committed they are to it after the big gap between flagships and the focus on mid-range tittle tattle. Plus Canon and Nikon just have so much momentum behind them from the prior DSLR mounts whereas Panasonic have had to start from scratch. Anyway I don't mean to keep knocking Panasonic, there's still life in the old dog yet, I just think they could learn a LOT from what Nikon are doing right now.

Pretty standard that 4K 120p is pixel binned on FF cameras. EOS R5, Sony a1 and Nikon Z8... now Pana has caught up a few years later. Only the full frame FX3 and Sony a7S III can do it without pixel binning due to their silly low megapixel count. Crop sensor 4K/120p got more options. GH6, GH7 are pretty good. X-H2S it is a further crop but still looks nice. I would say the 6K/60p of the S1R II is the mode that should have got the most attention in reviews though. There's no crop in 6K/60p right? And the rolling shutter is much better than in 8K? I still won't be getting one though. There's no way it is better than the Z8 for 3500 euros.

I want to see Facebook groups die a death. Let's get the good folk on those groups to come here instead.

I rate 4K/120p as a sign of a fast readout. It's not a slow sensor in all modes. It just lacks the latest cutting edge design attributes from Sony Semiconductors to do an 8K readout at under 15ms. So a nearly, but not quite the best sensor in the 40 megapixel range. The EOS R5 and Z8 are better and a few years older. Panasonic are making a bit of a habit of being nearly good, and 5 years late. BTW just watched the full Gerald meltdown. The ending is quite illuminating... He says he's got this great money spinner of a channel and doesn't want people to pull at the yarn to unravel his enjoyment of it. The way he frames it is that the channel is a community, blah bah blah. But this is really about his job satisfaction and he's clearly had it. In some ways I am empathetic. I understand too how annoying people can be. But why does it have to be about the S1R II in particular, he gets loads of other criticism on all sorts of topic. Seems unfair on loyal Panasonic users to pin them as the attack-dog types. Sony fanboys are far worse 🙂

So the forum is pretty good at the moment thanks to some spicy discussions, it would be boring if we all agreed all the time, but I also think we should encourage people to come back - big names from before like Mattias Burling , Dave Maze, they are missed. Maybe we could occasionally drop them a note to say so. I can't promote the forum myself, it just looks like I am spamming people with my blog. Maybe that's where you all come in 🙂 Would some of you be willing to post a few links here and there in popular Reddit groups, on DPReview and on social media groups? It would supercharge the place and get us noticed more... Then we'd have some great discussions with new people, and regain some control over the camera community in an independent way, rather than everything being hoovered up by the big US social media giants who are opening supporting a fascist regime at the moment. Never been a better moment to get our independence back from social media. Mark Zuckenberg and those like him are pure evil. The forum way is a better way. It offers everyone here a higher profile and higher involvement. The better our content, the better the discussions, the more people will come... I know a lot of forum posts have to reference other people's talking point or content, so a topic can devolve into lots and lots of URLs to social media, or YouTube video embeds. But rather than have rules around this, which I don't want to do, it would be great if we could encourage people to join who will use the forum a bit like having their own blog - Posting original hands-on opinions and content about cameras and shooting... Our own insight is better than constantly referring to that of others - It would be good for the community. Just some thoughts and open to more ideas too about how to grow this rather nice place that we've got.

Without wanting to drag the topic off into DSLRs, I was talking about Nikon's history in mirrorless cameras starting with the 1" sensor 1 Series cameras. The DSLRs from Nikon were never all that popular with video users. T2i > D90, 5D II > D800 and any number of cameras > D5200 but at the D5300 / D750 stage Nikon did at least start to take video more seriously. But ever since the Z9 they have been giving us way more. The Z6 III, Z8, Z9 and Zf are all better than Canon for video. Z8 > R5 Z6 III > R6 II Z9 > EOS R3/R1 Zf > whatever Canon has for the same price Just overall better specs and handling. So that's a big reversal since 10 years ago and the DSLR era for Nikon. RED purchase only going to supercharge this trend. They are ahead of Panasonic on value for money, specs and sensor tech, including especially AF and codecs. They are ahead of Canon on specs, handling, ergonomics, mount, and dare I say it also value for money. Ahead of Sony on some things too but perhaps not in terms of sales or user numbers. And Fuji is a different kettle of fish altogether so it's harder to compare.

Still need to upload those files... I did a quick test of the Voigtlander 40mm F1.2 and 35mm F1.2 today, Leica M mount versions on the Canon EOS R5, Sony a7r III and Nikon Z8. This is to see exactly how different the optical performance is on each filter stack in the 40+ megapixel range. So along with the N-RAW and N-LOG files I'll try and get that turned into a blog post soon too.

Wonder how many of them are still there?

With all due respect... It's not a forum about you, but about cameras. Let's start thinking about what is interesting to read and insightful for the 100s of people reading or researching at this moment, and what is pages and pages of personal exposition with no relation to the topic of cameras. We can discuss Gerald, he is very much on topic... including this one, as he has reviewed the S1R II. "UK (from London to Belfast) is my official residence and Malta will follow at same time for soon, very likely. With a few productions a bit spread all over EU and East Europe to include Moscow and Kyiv" This isn't S1R II related. It's about you. Let's not always make stuff about ourselves shall we?