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10 minutes ago, mercer said:

Since Fuji is known to add features via FW updates, to other/older model cameras, does anyone think any of these new features will trickle to the X-H1?

I’ll be in the market for a hybrid camera within the next few months and one of my boxes to tick is IBIS and after looking at dozens and dozens of Flickr pages, IG #s and YT and Vimeo videos, the X-H1 is in my top three.

I've been thinking on that too. I just got an X-H1 thinking the X-T3 would be announced but won't be on sale for a couple of months and I needed something earlier, but now I wonder if maybe I should've held off. I can't see most of those headline features coming to the X-H1, maybe zebras and some of the smaller features. 4k60p would be amazing but I can't see how it can happen since it's so hardware dependant, but I wonder if 10bit external is a possibility? The 1080/60p looks great though, and easily a match for the 4k downsampled so at least on a 1080 timeline there shouldn't be any problems mixing and matching. For me though I'd be happy if they fix the aliasing in the 120p mode -- I haven't done proper tests but it looks worse than the X-T2, on some surfaces it looks like it was recording the peaking. 

I’m afraid the only Fuji with reliable, controllable, and smooth AF in video is the X-H1. It’s not quite as good as Canon’s implementation but it’s pretty darn good.  

1 hour ago, Django said:

I guess you were shooting 1080p because XH1 has a 4K crop. In fact it's almost the exact same crop (1.7x). It's less noticeable with native lenses cuz they're made for APS-C but it wouldn't be the ideal candidate for that type of job, again unless you're shooting 1080p in which case the EOS R would also not give you a crop in between stills/video.

 

But the 4k Crop is 1.17x from APS-C, so 1.5x to 1.76x -- it's a tiny crop compared to 1x to 1.7x. My 16mm becomes an 18.7mm, so in full frame terms it's going 24mm to a 28mm. I can handle that. But with the EOS R it would turn my 24mm to a 40mm, which is a completely different lens.

43 minutes ago, Dan Sherman said:

Time limits are usually put in place for two reasons. 

• To skirt some retarded EU import tax laws
• Thermal safeguard.

 

For Fuji at least the 10min limit is thermal protection for the battery, hence the extended time with the battery grip (which houses two extra batteries.) Sometimes I wish Fuji would change their batteries, but then I have 10 of them now...

1 hour ago, KnightsFan said:

 

the 4K crop is a deal breaker. The only reason I'd upgrade from my apsc is to get full frame. I shoot photos an video, sometimes in quick succession. I can't have my current lens behave differently depending on the mode I'm in. I'd rather just stick with apsc. 

 

I just got an X-H1 for this very reason — I have an upcoming job where for every stills shot they needed a motion equivalent, and we’re working in real locations around people working so it was just easier to have a camera that can handle both stills and motion in exactly the same way. I previously did a similar job where I shot with my D800 and C100mk2, and the switching back and forth did my head in. 

8 minutes ago, Jimmy said:

I think I read that the XH1 processor is not fast enough for these new specs.

Yeah I’m not holding my breath. But then the X-Pro2 wasnt supposed to be able to shoot 4k either. Though the difference here is that they had 2 more years of development time from when the X-Pro2 was released with the current sensor/processor to wring every drop of performance, but now that they’re moving onto a new generation I wouldn’t expect too much more development time being put into the current line. Still — it’d be amazing if they did!

The X-H2 will be interesting but I’m wondering how many of those features will flow through to the X-H1. Either 10bit or 4k60p would be amazing — even if it was a paid upgrade

2 hours ago, mkabi said:

But @Django is correct it is 1.7... to be more precise 1.755... because although it’s advertised as 1.17 crop... that crop is already from a cropped 1.5 APS-C sensor... 1.17 X 1.5 = 1.755.

 

@mkabi @Django Ahh ok I see, fair call!

4 hours ago, Django said:

Also there is a 1.7x crop in 4K on Fujis so it isn't really S35 and 1080p has moire/aliasing issues. I'm really hoping XT3 sorts that.

 

It’s a 1.17x crop, not 1.7x. And while the moire is pretty bad in the 120p mode, at 60p or slower there’s little to no moire that I’ve seen in my footage.

50 minutes ago, Mokara said:

A telltale sign that is going on when non-quantifiable qualities such as "color science", "cinematic" and "special sauce" start being bandied about as their rationale. As soon as you hear those sorts of things you know they are full of shit

Hahahaha, I guess I'm full of shit because if colour isn't at the top of the list in how you evaluate cameras then you're just a camera collector, not a creative. I've yet to meet a single working photographer, assistant, camera op, dp, or anyone with an interest in image capture who dismisses colour over any other image quality factor -- not sharpness, resolution, codec, frame rate -- anything. If the colour isn't there who cares about anything else!

10 minutes ago, Robert Collins said:

Well it sort of is. Because when you admit you are talking about 'color preferences' and that there is 'no objective measure' you are not dealing with 'science' at all! But I argued this once before and people simply declared they ]'preferred' their own definition of science over mine.

I agree with you about the term "colour science". I mean I'm sure there's a ton of engineering and science that goes into the creation of the sensors and lenses, but when it's used as a marketing term as well it just falls apart. Ultimately one person will like how one brand renders colours over another -- Canon and Nikon users have been at it since digital is a thing, and there's no way to "win" that argument, you just like what you like. 

2 hours ago, Mark Romero 2 said:

 

And of course, someone had to take a crap in the punch bowl...

 

 

For those of you who want a summary of the video:

Lackluster autofocus
No Eye Autofocus
Lackluster metering
Lackluster IBIS with adapted lenses
"Sony-Style" mushy buttons
1080p 120fps only in DX crop mode???
Laggy EVF (for stills)

Wondering if that guy who bought my D750 off craigslist will sell it back to me...  ?

Thanks for posting that, it’s good to see that there are reviews that talk about the bad. I thought they made some decent points and observations, and they’re pretty even handed with their views. Hopefully a lot of that stuff can be fixed in firmware, and hopefully they follow Fuji’s example and have regular firmware updates to refine the camera (even if they don’t add extra features). If nothing else that focus issue needs a fix, it sounds a lot like my D800, which has rubbish AF. 

On 8/23/2018 at 1:02 AM, kye said:

I've tried this type of rig and there are a few issues.  The first issue is that the wide angle of the GoPro makes it difficult to mount so that it can't see the lens or the shotgun mic that are also sticking out the front, let alone your hand playing with the zoom / focus rings.  The second issue is that a second angle is most useful to cut to when something bad happens to the first angle, but if they're mounted together and someone bumps the camera (or some other movement issue) then footage from both cameras are bad at that point.  If you don't need continuity editing and only need a second focal length then it might be ok.

It would depend on the particular setup.  If I was shooting with a tripod then I'd be tempted to mount the GoPro either quite a lot higher up than the main camera (for events perhaps) or maybe 30cm or so to the side, so they'd still be sharing a single tripod.  This would mean that when you cut between them the angle is a bit different and it doesn't just look like a jump cut with a bit of a crop thrown in to try and cover it up.

Thanks for your insight, it's great to hear from someone whose actually done it! I like using an EasyRig whenever I can, and  I'd love to try rigging an Insta360 to the top of one, I think that could be a solution to some of those issues you mentioned. 

43 minutes ago, webrunner5 said:

Really? Nah, Really? ?

My whole philosophy for buying gear is to buy the camera that does the most stuff, and hire everything else. As much as I love my C100mk2, most of my jobs are in stills, so it tends to just sit in a bag most of the time. There's tons that I'd still prefer about it, from the long battery life, dual card recording, proper audio, and not needing to rig it with anything -- but I can always hire it if I need it. My last video job I was shooting stills and motion and switching back and forth, and for a few shots when I didn't have time to switch, I just shot it with my X-T2 and it looked great. I see the Z7 as a higher resolution X-T2 with better AF, so that's my draw to it.

Overall I’m very excited by the Z7, if the video AF is as good as the description (and the sample vids look very promising) I may be found the replacement for my c100mk2. They are different animals for sure, but given that I was shooting stills on Nikon for years before moving to Fuji it’s nice to go back to my whole lens kit.

Regarding battery life, I’m guessing the best thing to do is what Fuji shooters do — turn it off when you’re not shooting. Less useful for video, but with stills I regularly get 800 shots per battery from my xpro2 by turning on to shoot and then turning it straight off again. Hopefully the Z will turn on and off like their regular DSLRs so that will work. 

I know there are people who mount GoPros on their cameras to get a wide while shooting run and gun (mostly freelance news or fast moving doc crews), and I wonder if this would be an even better solution to having a second wide angle to fall back on in case you miss something while shooting longer. Assuming the footage can be cut in to each other, I think this could be a really good option when shooting docs or really fast moving scenes where getting the shot is more important than it being beautiful.

Just curious — how many cameras with reliable AF has a really crap codec? You could argue that the C100mk2 has a rubbish codec on paper yet it looks nice and is plenty gradable as long as you get you exposure right. 

1 hour ago, Tone1k said:

What lens were you using on the X-t2 and what AF mode were you using? 

Were you trying to track a face? 

I was mostly using the 16 1.4 and the 35 1.4. It's actually pretty accurate, the issue is that it isn't smooth. DPAF looks like a professional focus puller is on the job, the X-T2 looks like me pulling focus while operating and directing...

I just got back from a 3 day run and gun, stills and motion, tourism campaign where I basically shot everything on a combination of C100mk2 and X-T2 for 100fps and gimbal work, and stills on Nikon. It's definitely the biggest shoot I've done so far, and it's looking great. But it did get me thinking, as much as I love my C100mk2, is there a camera out there that has Canon level autofocus AND can shoot more than 120fps? Absolute bonus of it's small enough to fit on a Crane 2. As far as I can tell currently you can have killer AF and up to 120fps (C200), or higher frame rates but crap to ok AF (FS7, GH5s etc.)

The closest to nirvana so far has been the X-T2, a couple of times we were given only a few minutes to get what we need and I shot a variety of 100fps, 50fps, and stills all on that camera -- and it was brilliant. But the AF sucks, and a lot of the time I really relied on the C100's almost magical AF ability. We didn't need audio on this one and that would also be another issue on the X-T2. I suspect there's not really anything out there yet that can do all these things, but I'd love to hear everyone's suggestions and experience so I know what to keep any eye out for.

16 hours ago, Don Kotlos said:

If you compare the 2018 to previous gen MBP in some heavy rendering task you will see what everyone means by i9 being limited. The performance gain will be very small ~10-15% and in some extreme cases it can be worse as well. That is far from the ~50% performance gain that you would expect theoretically from using 2 extra cores. 

[...]
In short, the current macs do not perform as good as expected. I am confident that apple can at least provide some remedy with a combination of wattage limitation after few seconds + some tighter coupling of fan speed and the temperatures. 

Thanks for running those tests, the heat issue pretty much maps with my experience with the first gen Touch Bar 15in MBP -- once temps get to 100C it's pretty much all over. I try to mitigate it by using iStat Menus to override system control of the fans and force the fans to run at full speed before I need to do something really heavy duty, and that seems to keep my CPU temp to the low 90s even at full utilisation. I'm wondering if you've run the test under that scenario and whether it would make any difference to performance?

7 hours ago, hijodeibn said:

I agree with everything you said, but the codec in the C100 can be easily improved with a ninja star, which is a very small external recorded which provides ProRess 8+ bit 422. I owned a C100 mark I and for doc work is a fantastic camera, the main issue to me is that it is too big to pass unnotice on the street, I really need a M50. The other thing you fall in love is the DPAF, it makes shooting so much easy....and you can also mount the C100 in a pistol stabilizer (actually only the Nedula 5100 can support it) and get very cinematic shoots.....if you add also a steadicam to the pistol to control the z axis, you are in heaven!!!

I've mounted my C100mk2 with the 24mm pancake on a Crane 2 and it's ok, but the height of the camera and the evf gets in the way of tilts. It's quite a nice way to work, I usually have it mounted on a monopod so I can put it down when I need to.

7 hours ago, mercer said:

I recently saw a Mark II on the trade show floor and I was surprised by how small it actually was without the top handle. I don’t think it looks much bigger than my 5D3... although I’m sure it is if they were side by side.

I'm constantly surprised by the ergonomics of it in the hand, it really is lovely to use. All the buttons are where you need them and right where your fingers are. It's pretty compact if you take the side handle off as well, it's *almost* discreet

27 minutes ago, Anaconda_ said:

Anyway, it's kind of off topic, and is down to your my preferences. For some reason, when I saw this product, I assumed it would be much better than the competition, but to me seems the same or even less flexible for more cash.

Yeah I’m a little underwhelmed by the Blackmagic eGPU as well, all that effort and cost and only the same GPU as the iMac? I hope there’s an option in the future for at least a Vega chip from the iMac Pro. 

My first thought was that the new 15in is really expensive, but then I realised that a similarly configured 6 core model is actually 500 bucks cheaper than what I paid for my quad core 18 months ago!

But for my money I'd be very tempted by the Quad core 13in with the eGPU.

EDIT: Whoops, there was already talk of it on another thread! 

I love my C100mk2, I wouldn't give it up unless I was getting a C200 or C300mk2. If you shoot solo or very small crew, having dependable AF is life changing. The audio sounds pretty darn good as well, and having both a decent screen and decent EVF that swivels makes life easier when working outside or in. Files look great out of the box so it's great for fast turnaround stuff, and C-Log grades pretty well considering the gimped codec, which actually turns out to be a blessing because a 128gb card lasts all day, and it shoots backup to a second slot. A lot of the time I go out with the camera with 2 x 128gb and 2 x batteries and I can shoot all day without worrying about downloading or data management. I can complain all day about Canon, but the one thing they got right with the C series cameras is that it gets out of the way and lets you get on with shooting.

That said, I have fairly specific requirements. If you work with a larger crew, or if you're not working on paid jobs, there are probably better options. I shoot Fuji for stills so I have an X-T2 which goes on the gimbal, but a GH5s is certainly an excellent option that I would consider as a gimbal cam if I needed it. If I'm going to be on me feet all day I tend to hire an EasyRig (excellent combo with the C100mk2) but you're not exactly discreet -- so if discretion is required you definitely don't want a C100. 

16 hours ago, cantsin said:

I used the term "objectively" referring to objective measurements like resolution, low-light capabilities and signal/noise ratio. Nothing beats Sony's modern full frame sensors in that respect.

Again, there's no doubt Sony is at the forefront of sensor tech, but the D850 sensor combines all the good stuff across the A7R3 and the A9, so I wouldn't say that Sony is the only game in town. 

16 hours ago, cantsin said:

And, yes, Fuji beats them in the subjective departments, but their sensors are the same that Sony uses in its APS-C mirrorless cameras, only with a different color filter and a different (better) JPEG engine.

If you use Raw converters (like RawTherapee and DxO) that can use 100% their own color science on a raw image, color rendering differences between two camera manufacturers are nearly invislbe.

I do shoot RAW, and I am talking about RAW. There is a subtle but noticeable difference in the way Fuji RAWs handle colour that is different from other manufacturers, this is true for LR and Capture One. 

16 hours ago, IronFilm said:

 Been wanting an APS-C P&S for ages, still kicking myself I didn't buy the Nikon Coolpix A when it was on a close out sale (under US$300 back in early 2015!!), so out of curiosity I went and checked where prices are for the X100 series on ebay. They've got about that low! However dunno if I'd want to spend that much for the older model which does 12MP / 720P in 2018 ? And of course the new X100F is a lot more. 

Yeah the X100F is really expensive, but the more I use it the more I love it, so I don't regret buying it. Could do with a better lens though, I'd love to see the next version of the X100 with a better lens, bayonet rather than screw mount wide and tele converters, and dual card slots. Even if it costs more I'd buy it for those extra features. 
 

15 hours ago, cantsin said:

For pure image quality, the Sony A7/A9 series (A7 Riii, A7 III, A9) is objectively the best, simply because it offers the best sensor technology and, in combination with Zeiss lenses, top-class optics. Only digital medium format (Fuji GFX, Hasselblad) is better.

For handling/shooting experience/ergonomics, the Fuji X series is the best IMHO.

I wouldn't go so far as to the say the A7/A9 is "objectively" the best, if for no other reason than that "best" is subjective  (at least when it comes to image quality) . But it is very very good, though Fuji has just the most beautiful colour. I used to think that if you shoot in RAW it really doesn't matter, and that still 98% true, but Fuji RAW files just has something about them that neither Sony nor Nikon nor Canon can do. But like you say you'd have to look at medium format for better image quality, and for someone else's money nothing at all beats Phase One.