gethin

They are amazing little cameras, but the one I had (the IV) wasn't a joy to use.  But Sonys passion is not for photography it's for $$. That's capitalism for ya. On the plus side it creates space in the market for mavericks like sigma and the E2. I can't wait to see where they are going to go. 

it looks to me like there is artifacting in there due to time warping. I suggest it was shot at a lower framerate.  

anyone interested should hop on the facebook group an petition for a small-flange version of the s35 and FF models, due to be released with EF and PL mounts only.  Kinson Loo is active on the page - one of the most appealing things about the camera: the management and techs are on there, and there is a sense they are learning and constantly perfecting the camera software. 

I will buy this. Or th moza aircross 2 if it ever comes out. THe ronin s is tooo heavy. 

Hey anyone here used to use balance gimbals like the glidecam?  I'm convinced that there is scope for a hybrid where the pan axis is just on a bearing. I used to get smoother slow moves with my blackbird.  The organic tail off of the spin is very hard to achieve on a powered gimbal. Currently whilst moving any wrist movements can slow or speed up a pan, whereas on the old school ones a pan would slow down no matter what your wrist is doing.   The other thing is that the joint on the old styley effectively removed some of the walk bounce.  

Nikon still do not understand video, and they don't want to.

I contacted Nikon Australia to point out that the auto mode had a minimum shutter speed equivalent to 360 degree shutter and no way to change it and they said: meh.  (And when I bring this up so many people blether on about shooting in manual mode and fail to imagine a circumstance where having a fixed aperture but smoothly variable shutter would be useful, so don't feel you need to waive your lack of imagination around now ?) . The fact it works like this is emblematic of Nikon's attitude to video: an annoying bolt-on they've been forced into and driven more by their marketing Dept than by their engineers. 

They can't imagine a time where stills will be the secondary function for photographers. A bit like Nokia before smartphones. 

On 7/12/2019 at 2:31 PM, kye said:

Yeah, I agree.

Although, personally, I separate out the weaknesses / requirements of the camera into things that I could work on and things I can't (or have chosen not to).  For example, if people shoot run-n-gun with the GH5 and get great low-noise footage then I'm very interested in how they do that.  If they do that by having great lighting then that doesn't apply to me and how I shoot (I shoot exclusively in available light) but if they've achieved that in post then I will absolutely work my butt off to learn how to do that.  So in a way, I will use the best examples of what is possible as 'inspiration' for me to push myself and learn more about the craft.

The GH5 is a funny one actually, because for me the GH5 produces absolutely glorious images and so (for the most part) I can just look at the camera as being infinitely good, and if there's issues with my films then it's basically my fault.  I know it's not true for low-light shooting (for example) but mostly I push myself super-hard to create magic.  It means that I'm basically always disappointed with the results, but it makes me learn at the fastest rate I can, so in that sense it's still worthwhile.  Every now and then the factors I've chosen not to control will come together and magic will get recorded to the SD card and it makes me really happy and makes everything worthwhile.

I also have a big skew in my approach because I completely accept that my shooting will be far from perfect, but then I work super hard in post to get the best results I can.  In this sense I think that tests like this are great for reminding everyone that there are many cameras that produce workable images, and my personal opinion is that if you know what you're doing then you can really elevate your work by colour grading and otherwise manipulating images.

I agree with all of what you said   It was the grading workflow that was the nail in the coffin for me: I was spending way too much time getting the image to a point where it was acceptable.  I admit I have a lot to learn about grading log footage, but for what I do it was totally bonkers spending that amount of time on it.  Akin to linus tech tips shooting with RED, what a whole load of faff, for a tech a blog, they'd get better results quicker with an an a7.  THe z6 is sooooo much quicker, I have a few presets I can dump on the footage for different setups, and usually I just have to tweak the curves a bit, then onto the next.  However, I just shot a local tv ad on the z6, and I was missing the GH5: no log, no 10bit, no stupidly high bitrate, no advanced monitoring   Mostly that stuff is a safety net, but just knowing that the gear you use is designed more for that style of shooting, and having those more advanced options available makes you feel more in control.  It's not great working a job and feeling like your kit isn't quite up to the task (even if that is just in your head!).  

@kye yep I think warts and all reviews are very important. Too many reviewers will cut together the nicest looking footage: I guess that's natural.

for me I'd watched so much gh5 stuff I wasn't prepared for its shortcomings, (which for me was the highlight rolloff and the shadow noise). I realised in retropect all the nice footage I'd seen controlled those aspects. The thing I learnt from that (and I guess this test shows this too) is that the the perfect camera for you is not the perfect camera for someone else, and you have to modify the way you work to get the best out of a camera. That entails some compromises, and sometimes it can be a compromise too far that's makes you move on to different gear. 

I probably should keep my big fat yap shut, and I have a lot of respect for Mathias and I agree with the sentiment about technique and worrying less about specks but (obviously there going to be a but...) I try to tell potential clients that if they're comparing photographers to try and look at all their output, not just their portfolio pics. And that anyone should be able to get 20 good shots together. It's how they handle the most difficult situations and the level of consistency that is the mark of a professional, and I'd humbly like to suggest the same is true of gear.  It's when you push cameras to the edge of what they're capable of that you find out which ones work for you.  I'm constantly shooting in very high dynamic range situations. The z6 is a better fit for me than the gh5. I prefer the highlight rolloff on the z6 and like how much you can push the shadows. The same test shooting the dog backlit against a window would be more enlightening. Can you recover shadow detail, highlights, does the image still look nice with the background overexposed etc. 

20 hours ago, Castorp said:

Gethin, make an A2 inch print from that zhongyi and one from any of the Z lenses and see what happens. 

I don’t have the 14-30/4 but I hear it’s more than comparable to the 14-24/2.8G?

I will get back to Andrew later. I understand his perspective, but it’s a niche perspective which he doesn’t specify. He cares about very specific things, which is fine, but a reviewers viewpoint should be clear and not be made to sound like a general matter of fact. 

On the other hand, generalising and simplistic statements that stir emotions through dishonesty for the sake of clicks is the name of the game these days. 

 

Zounds! A2 printing. Methinks you're in the wrong forum ?  Horses for courses: I care more about character most of the time. Except longtitudinal chromatic abberation, I hate that. Especially hard to correct on video. 

I have both, no the 14-24 is sharper, but the 14-30 has a simpler distortion to correct. 

Erm, re trying to tell someone what they should and shouldn't do on their own website: priceless.  As I said - I prefer character than "perfection" Lol

On 7/4/2019 at 2:51 AM, Castorp said:

 

As of today the single best reason to buy a Z camera I believe is the lenses. 

 

whert? theres only 5 reasons, and none of them are that interesting. I only own the 14-30 f4. It's really handy, but it's not great, soft at 14, and farking expensive for a plastic focus by wire lens. And on that - what in gods name is good about it? They are a pain in the arse to fcus manually, let alone focus pull.  The 14-30 is soft enough that even zoomed all the way in focussing by wire is a nightmare. Nikon touted it's lens mount as enabling super-duper lens design, then brought out f1.8 primes and f4 zooms aimed at a consumer market. Totally batso strategy and SNAFU for nikon.  The only native z lenses I'm going to consider buying are wide, or light lenses, Because once you get over a certain size and weight, you may as well buy f-mount and keep your mounting options open (ie you can adapt them to everything else, whereas z-mount lenses are for z-cameres only). 

My lens research over the last few months has been on the

zhongyi 85mm f1.2, 50mm f0.95
laowa 10-18. 12mm zero d, 105 f2. 
sigma and nikon 105 f1.4, 

even if z versions are released, I still might consider buying e or F mount versions of these lenses because it leaves my future options open. 

If nikon had released z versions of a 12-24 f4, 16-40 f2.8, 50 f1.2 that is a similar size to it's existing f1.2 lens (with similar rendering),  and 20, 35, 85 f1.4 primes I would've looked hard at all of those.  And why not have a focus by wire option that keeps the travel of the lens ring locked to how much the focus changes? how hard can that be?

missing my 4K 60 though. 

4k60 ?
1.5x crop ?

It just leads to a load of faff. FOr what I do it wold be quicker to have 2 cameras. 

Yep I hadn't thought about sensor size. What's the Mavic 2 like in low light? The Phantom 4 is pretty crap, but the action cam footage I saw shot indoors was not terrible.  

I have to say: I'm not saying it was great, but that it was great for a$500 action cam. HDR 4k vid ffs! 

I posted this because of some footage I'd seen. Honestly it was nearly shit enough for a $500 camera. It had no right to be so good. It made me positively angry.  ?

well whatever you do, you always try and make it as good as possible, but even a year ago you wouldn't have thought about shooting on an action cam. It reminds me of the printing industry 20 years ago. People were going bust all over the place because they were still paying off 100's of thousands of dollars worth of kit, and were being out-competed by startups using kit 1/10th of the cost, quicker and easier to use, and cheaper to run.  For $500 aud, I might have to get one, just to see. I could attach it to my current setup and would hardly feel the weight difference! 

I just saw some footage from DJI's new action cam. HDR video! WTF? Sometimes I wonder why I dropped $5K on a camera setup when I could just shoot my real estate vids on an action cam, and most people wouldn't notice the difference. I just bought the 14-30 lens for my z6, and I'll buy the mozo aircross 2 to replace my ronin-s when it comes out, because 3.6kg of camera setup is killing me. But to think someone could just buy this and a wee gimbal, or the pocket osmo, and even begin to compete is head scratching. 

I just quoted on a job. Required 3 trips to location, 3 lots of drone work and shooting on a roof and a little interview.

I quoted $2200 Aud (about 1500 usd) for a 2-3 min finished vid or $275 per hour  ($195usd) for the raw footage, only.  Got message back that he didn't have a lot of money to spend on the vid, and ultimately that i was too expensive, and I just wonder what folk expect when they phone about that sort of job. $500? I am seeing this more and more. Time to give up on video and become a plumber.

the s1r is going to be 6-7000K in australia, I betcha.  and they're positioning it as a stills camera that also shoots video.  I dont really get it. 

On 1/24/2019 at 12:11 AM, hansel said:

Why was it painful to shoot, to much weight? Video looks very clean.

Yes really farking heavy, and 30+ degrees. that shot of the person in the river is me.  Even after jumping in I was still roasting   The video is really clean, in the shadows too.  My first impression is that the GH5 will offer you more control, and ultimately a better image when you have time to work on it. I'd be more comfortable shooting a low-budget advert on the gh5 if I had control of light, and time to do anything about it.  Coupled with just how weird the gh5 was to grade.  Sometimes the exact same grading would look vastly different from one shot to the next.  I was constantly fiddling just to get something acceptable.  I'd try to pull the sky down and it would fall apart. I'd try to boost the shadows and it would fall apart.  I  got used to living with a shot pretty well how i'd shot it.  z6 i get the feeling I'll be able to shove it around more, which is odd because I'm pretty sure its a lower bitrate and 8 bit.  Go figure. I'm going to sell my gh5. Just need to decide if I'm going to sell all my m4/3 kit or keep it in case I get a BMPCC4k. 

On 1/24/2019 at 9:04 AM, BasiliskFilm said:

camera 1lb, lens 2lb - not the easiest setup to balance, I imagine!

the ronin is impressive in that regard if a bit quirky.  Even with the ronin you dont get full movement - the rubber eyepiece hits the ronin, so you only get about 30 degrees to tilt down. I tried adding extra weight to the back so I could move the camera forward, but didn't work. Cant wait for the 14-30. (I imagine I'll be looking at the mooza air once i start getting more native lenses).   However, seeing what sony are doing with their autofocus, and how much their colour has improved, I still havent ruled out going all in on sony depending on the next a7s.   

I just finished my first shoot where I used the z6 for all the video shooting.  Was a bit painful to shoot (z6+14-24f2.8+ronin-s), but a total joy to grade.  The house was pretty easy to shoot though, nowhere near the dynamic range of some properties I shoot, it'll be interesting to see how it fares with them.  The ronin-s is miles better than the crane 2 for me. virtually no jitter even with the humongous cam and lens combo.  Good job too because the rolling shutter makes warp stabiliser a bit hit and miss.  I know some people have complained about the slomo, but I think its better than the gh5's. I spent the first few weeks telling my partner I was going to sell it, but just like the d5500, I'm loving the image.  Foibles: flicker from lights. I assume this is to do with the slow readout too.  Never had this issue with GH5. Its fine if I leave the shutter on 1/100 or 1/50th, but problematic if I want to use an auto mode.  I noticed some flicker on manual with auto iso. Have no idea why that should happen.  I know people dont post there own work a lot on here, I think more people should. 

d5300/d5500 was a dog to use for video (I assume the d5600 was too). I put up with it because the image was nice, and because the video was so obviously a "and also" feature.  The z6 has aspects of dogginess, but I have less patience with it because its supposed to be aimed at video makers. 

does anyone know readout speed of z6 sensor.  I forgot just how this effects my workflow (warp stabilizer is amazing with a fast readout sensor, woeful wobbly jelly nightmare with a slow one). MY gx85 was truly terrible, the z6 is not as bad, and I was spoilt rotten with the gh5.  In fact the gh5 made me forget this could be an issue.

Got my numbers here, but z6 not on the list:http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?303559-Measuring-rolling-shutter-put-a-number-on-this-issue!

On 12/14/2018 at 7:32 PM, Castorp said:

Haven’t use the video mode in anything but M and I don’t quite understand the utility. 

If I want automatic exposure in video mode I stay in M but switch ISO from manual to auto. 

I find there are more important things for Nikon to do. For example a way to declutter the display. There is no way to turn off all the info, rendering the display unusable at times. 

If you want that you do that. If what you want isn't what I want then feel free to keep doing what you do. Everyone has different priorities with a camera, what is important for one person is not important for another.

The fact remains though that having an auto mode where the min shutter is 360 degrees, and where one mode apparently does nothing different to another is completely fucking bonkers.

Yes I agree there are a bunch of foibles that need to be fixed.  It'll take a miracle for nikon to do anything other than fix them in the z6.01 or whatever the fuck they'll call it. 

17 hours ago, DBounce said:

Just be vocal about it. I’m certain a firmware update will fix the issues. I’m willing to bet this camera will improve over time. It’s already great, the firmware tweaks will make it better. Refinements to stills AF would also be good. Maybe eye detect?

Yeah I'm talking to a nikon tech about it. He said it's setup so min shutter is always 1/fps. I've asked him who or where i can petition for a firmware update

18 hours ago, liork said:

Is it stuck on 1/25 speed? I had the Z7 for few days and could not change the shutter speed from 1/25 in S mode. As I shoot only in M mode, did not spend much time trying to solve it, but it was strange.

Yeah shutter priority does not work at all. Lols

On 12/12/2018 at 2:37 AM, Mmmbeats said:

Great stuff.  I will likely switch over from CineForm for my intermediate workflow.  Just upgraded to GH5 so will have to figure a good 10-bit workflow also.

BTW - how's stability these days?  I'm still on a ver 9.2 build!!! ?

I have a cineform workflow too. I was about to start switching to prores and thought I'd google which flavor was most like cineform, and found a ton of posts raving about cineform vs prores for quality, compression, speed of encoding and playback.  so I'm just wondering what the advantage is.  (having prores is fab for final exports of course!)