ND64

Big portion of that 16 stops is unrecoverable due to heavy baked in raw processing and NR. LOFIC low light performance is intrinsically poor, so they have to use two or even three readouts with conventional approach and combine them all (which is not very linear) then add some sharpness tricks to reconstruct the degraded quality. At this sensor size and consumer level, nobody cares and the only thing matters is that it makes truly HDR image. To implement this tech in bigger sensor for pro bodies, that process should be way more refined.

None of these are unknown for the firmware team that already finished the development. Its not something they need time to discover. Also, when they promise the update in the marketing materials, they're officially admitting they have the solution. Heck they even let Philip Bloom to test it.

It's the best compact cine camera in the market, for NOW. But I'm not sure it can hold that position for long. Maybe they know this and keeping some features unavailable today to be unlocked at 2027. Firmware update these days are more a marketing policy (our product still competes) than an engineering challenge. I mean 4k240 is not some issue in the code you want to resolve. Its a switch.

I remember Jim Kasson once said in his blog he wished there was a small but sharp corner to corner 85mm f/4 lens for landscape (he would prefer a f/5.6 one, but it would look silly marketing wise). 99% of photographers these days can't see whats the point of that, they all learned that 85 is for portrait and it should be fast to create a blurry background. So lens makers don't even think about that. We have gazillions of 85mm f/1.4 on the market right now, but none truly optimized for landscape. The irony is camera makers are trying to make full frame body as small as possible, so a compact 85mm would be ideal for a landscape combo, but everybody assumes compact=slim body+28mm pancake.

"Old look" has a similar function to "film look". Both separates the content from reality by not being accurate. Modern camera are capable of representing the real world as it is, like they're just mirrors. But the artist wants to make a dream for the audience. You don't perceive a mirror image as a dream.

WB should be before any creative operation, but before debayering is another story. Some still camera makers did that to make an "agreeable base point" for raw development softwares so they don't mess up with the brand's "image look" when they're doing their own WB process. Some differences in rendering we got used to see between LR and C1 is caused by the fact that there is very little communication between Japan and these software vendors. Some things like sharing the data of spectral response of the sensor with them. So instead of being more open, they place some pre scaling in the raw as baked in process. This practice makes less sense for Arri as they have a very good communication with software industry. But what do I know.

Interesting that WB is placed before De-bayer. Photographers call it "white balance scaling" and prefer it not to be done by manufacturer, since its digitally boosting channels, which is irreversible process. After all its not like all things they're doing is science. Some decisions are just an engineer thinking its the best compromise.

Some of Nikon's portrait F mount lenses do the same. They deliberately let the red light doesn't hit the same plane as blue/green. As like not-much-corrected glasses of the old days. So red is a bit out of focus. Very very tiny amount. Tho that amount changes with focus distance. They usually optimize for portrait distances. They abandoned that approach with Z mount lenses.

When I was learning calligraphy, an Arabic one, wich is very hard to learn and needs a specialized pen, my mentor used to say to us "an artist can write perfectly even with matchsticks, don't be obsessed with pens". Later on I realized he has an expensive collection of pens, from cheap ones to exotic ones, old and new, and in all possible sizes. He wasn't obsessed with gear. You could give him a philips screwdriver and leftover construction paint and he could manage to write a poem with that on a wooden pallet. But he also had a passion for gears, because pen is something that connects him to the art he loves.

And with SD card, no RAW video. Unless heavily cropped 4k30.

And now the ZRc: Fourth quarter of 2026 is too late, or something lost in translation. Z30/Z50II sensor at that point is lame. No IBIS is shame, and 4k60 with crop on APSC is unacceptable. But why its not Z30II? Doesn't make sense.

According to my humble experience, just like a very known phenomenon that people who zealously concentrate on practicing religion end up being the most materialist/machiavellist member of their community in the long term, those who see no value in camera other than specs, or in best case pure utilitarianism, end up advocating smartphone as replacement for every possible photography tool.

Have they explained somewhere how they get this ranking? If one entity rent the same 24-70mm twice in a month, and it counts as two, the whole thing doesn't show any meaningful information.

Not much problem for christian nationalists who don't want to see non white tourists and non religious white tourists walk on their country's soil.

FX3 ended up as both elixir and poison for Sony. It established E mount as go-to choice for professional video, and at the same time became the benchmark of "good enough". They will update it with a super fast sensor (either a 6k120 from 12k, or 5k240 from a 67MP sensor with dual gain HDR, both available next year), but that makes it a $5000 camera, then FX3 wins again with just being cheaper.