ND64

Even in Telegram, the best messaging app that can be used for documentation, channel address is editable, and when it happens all the links will be broken. And search doesn't search the channels and groups you're not aware they exist.

1- the rate of decline in engagement in all of the photo/video forums and websites is depressing. Even comment sections are mini ghost towns compared to same place ten years ago. Maybe social media is stealing a lot of that free time usually spent on traditional web in the past. 2- many of those people who could write informative blog posts are now like "why bother writting any more when no one reads any more?". Today they're making videos, and try hard to make it 10 min long, which means they have to add a lot of water to the milk. 3- I don't see any other industry with so much negativity about the major brands of that industry. Telling people they don't need and shouldn't buy new released products is a norm in our corner of internet fora! There is hype moments before and after press release days, but overall discouragement is way bigger. But look at car enthusiasts or audiophiles online communities...They're constantly encourage each other to buy more! 4- lack of communication between experienced users and newcomers is hurting everyone, and sometimes it's sad. Many people who are upgrading from smartphone, are making mistakes related to misunderstandings that discussed and explained and solved seven years ago. They just don't know where to find the knowledge. 5- a tendency to reduce everything to "matter of taste" has emerged to the point that the whole concept of critique apears as moot point, like there is no wrong way and right way of doing things! Maybe its overthinking. I don't know.. just wanted to share my thoughts.

There is a lot of great capabilities with computational photography that Japanese camera makers could use, and didn't, but the point of having interchangeable lens camera is to have more control, not less. Of course you get more noise, to control how you like to deal with it. And what iPhone does with highlights is anything but pleasing. I don't blame the AI tho. Stacking multiple frames with different exposure to get a "normal" looking image is still a challenge for humans too.

This announcement proved that viral claim saying Nikon only approves third party lenses that don't directly compete with its own lenses, was completely baseless. 35-150mm cannibalizes Nikon badged 70-180mm sales, as some people already cancelled their pre-order.

Even clouds are not in the same place.

Vladimir Putin is also a disconnected man. Did it help? Not at all. He doesn't even know what's happening on the ground, and yet his peasant cannon fodder soldiers calling for his help, or at least a bit of attention, on TikTok! In a world of "popular contrarianism", some people are selling the online abstinence as a virtue! And its stupid. The alternative of spending 8 hours a day on Twitter is not using flip phone. The alternative is spending 2 hours. "Can an AI generated actor who doesn’t exist, become a celebrity?" Yes, it can. When he is so realistic that people don't even want to hear that its software generated.

They use the simplest algorithm for debayering and simplest algorithm for downscaling and simplest algorithm for noise reduction and low compression codec in video mode, inside a big metal body, and yet overheats. My smartphone uses a ton of complicated algorithms to extract a good looking image from a tiny noisy sensor, and compresse it to hell, and does it at 4k60p, in the most restrictive housing possible, and rarely overheats. Look what Asus is doing in thermal management for their gaming phones. Look at the power draw chart of new Samsung OLED displays these days and compare to your camera LCD. Do a speed test of a "midrange" phone's wifi chip and compare that to your camera wifi "solution". Camera makers are still using a decade old tech in "new" cameras, and we're supposed to be excited to have 4k120 in crop mode of a crop sensor.

Its not simple as that. There are a lot of object color-background light combinations that affects depth perception. If someone really want to spend time on that, he or she better do it at the scene with LEDs and carefully selected objects in the background, instead of specific color grading in post.

Unpopular opinion: extreme hue shift is not art. Its a fad.

What was ISO here? Seems its better to use SDR for NRAW when the scene DR is not too high; cause with SDR, video ISO values are the same as still ISO, but with NLog, ISO 800 is actually ISO 64 with lifted shadows.

It won't be fun when VisionPro and its cheaper alternatives go mainstream and they get 4k display per eye and your image is 2.7k.

Manual focus only with adapter? Pass.

I like flip-out displays but I know people who work in repair shops and they told me they see a lot of broken ones. Most of the times the data cable can't handle the usual wear and tear. What is completely absent in long term camera reviews are technical opinions of the guys who repair these stuff several months after their release.

Isn't it putting them in a more vulnerable position? The next attacker will be DJI. Whats the point of having a patent you can't defend?

They're free to keep it for Z9, but we don't know they're also free to use it in Z8.

I don't think Nikon has anything in tech IP to offer that may be useful for RED. They don't want Z mount. And almost all of Nikon's sensor patents are based of long time collaboration with Sony Semi. Masked AF pixels, stacked fabrications, all are covered by Sony IP too. However I don't think they just agreed about a license payment. RED's language in this lawsuit was very harsh. It was like they wanted to punish Nikon, regardless of claimed damage. Note that this was not a "Voluntary Dismissal" by RED like it was in Kinefinity case.

Anyone here knows what's the difference between settled case and dismissed case?

ProRes is expected, but RAW in smaller body, and with law suit going on? I don't know.

They put themselves in a strange position with stacked sensor. If they update Z6 with non stacked one, it looks like a downgrade. If they update that with stacked one, it will be costly for Z6 price range.

I liked the DR in this shot

The problem with Japanese camera makers is that they don't know how to make money anymore. You want to attract younger customers, you have to support the platforms that encourage them to use dedicated cameras. That's about a combination of knowledge and culture. Its a shame that these days its Apple, the king of parental "auto everything", that advocates manual control for its iphone cinematic mode. The Apple way of "manual" of course. Soon they change the taste of an entire generation to believe 60fps is artistic! Dedicated camera needs its own narrative to survive, and we're losing the narrative.

I noticed a significant drop in user engagement in the forums. Maybe the site's real traffic numbers are not as high as we think it is. Of course its still higher than other photography related websites. Since January they didn't even bother to cover the news of firmware updates. It doesn't take too much effort to write an article that Z5 got a new firmware update that adds eye AF in video!

OVF is lovely... until its dark.

You make it look more complicated than what its. Z9 sensor is noisier than A1 sensor, and using 12bit ADC to read out a noisy sensor doesn't give the best image quality. Nikon use the same raw codec for high efficiency raw still images, and photographers have no problem with that. BTW, raw recording benefit is not just correcting huge exposure mistakes in post. First, log profiled compressed images gonna suffer from banding. Its inevitable. Second, raw preserves the bayer pattern, so there will be freedom to use state of the art demosaicing algorithms in future, which are getting better and better with AI. Third, who doesn't hate baked-in white balance?

Different body for raw support makes sense, but different body for just prores? I don't know.