Paul Ning

I wonder if 6K RAW with 20fps is possible, then 4K RAW cropped with 24fps plus should be alright. And at the same time, S-log is missed for the movie. The thought of Sony product team is not quite comprehensible.

It is really a head scratching question because A7RII seems almost covering all the functions that 5D mark III can do (timelapse can be handled by a remote shutter, right?). What you gain from A7RII should be almost the double pixels (42MP vs 22.3MP) that is good for making 8K timelapse video, the internal 4K video, flap monitor for easier composition and smaller body, etc. However, the weight won't make a big different when A7RII attaches an AF adapter to use Canon EF lenses. And also, the flash system is still a myth for Sony while Canon is till maturer comparatively. If you use flash not much, exchanging 5DmkIII to Sony A7RII won't be bothering. Otherwise there is still some ground to keep Canon 5DmkIII. However, A7RII matches with A7s would give you a mighty solution of taking 4K video in "A + B camera" work flow(especially when you use ProRes or Shogun 4K RAW on A7S). That may change your direction of video and doing timelapse. For myself, I really don't mind to use both bodies in Sony. That's easier to manage single system then duo.

A7R II is an almost perfect camera for both video can still photos. What I feel still short is the high speed mode in video. As the read out speed is 3.5X faster than its ancestor A7R, I guess A7RII is able to shot high speed FHD video at least up to 120fps. Of course, it may require a crop mode for 4x crop to approach 1:1 pixel read out without line skipping. That's really pain on the ass.

No slow motion in FullHD higher than 96fps and no internal 4K. Panasonic wins the first round. Cheers!

I always wonder when will Panasonic or Sony make economic external recorder? If they want to fulfill or create the need of shooting RAW, they should know it is their responsibility to make the genuine peripheral equipment. They know the codec best.

That's good to provide Clean HDMI output. However, I think A6000 missed another critical chance is the high frame rate movie / slow motion. GH4 provides it in the way of variable frame rate up to 96fps which can produce 4 times slower in 24 fps playback. That's already quite a good selling point for the semi-pro video production! You never get another camera that provides such feature from a estimated $1,700 USD body. If GH4 can make a great success by it, I think all other brands should react at once to go against it. I have reminded Sony development team last year. I hope the firmware update can achieve this as A6000 has a larger buffer for the 11 fps continuous shot.

Well, I prefer a slow mo 1080p first.

Who can tell me the priority of hardware upgrade? The production or post-production first? When our editing equipment is barely good enough to deal with 1080p footage and RAW, then here comes another monster to eat up our resources. Should I invest an 8-core CPU, 64GB RAM or 100TB of HDD? 4K broardcasting is still on the mid way except Japan. I still can't see the strong reason of using 4K film making except for the commercial and feature films. Of course, the manufacturers want a reason of promotion 4K panels, that's the main reason.

Whatever how high the resolution of the video captured, the basic problem that needs to solve is the storage capacity. 4K H.264 is almost the identical as FullHD ProRes 422 HQ for 1 mins. If the prices of high-speed memory card or SLC SSD are not going down, the high-res format will never be getting popular.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuEtZb3ZNLA   Just find a youtube that may be worthwhile to discuss. Everyone should know that 70D might be another chance of shooting raw video after the ML installed 5Dmk3. However, the video shows that the buffer for shooting raw image is about 34 shots and getting slow after 22th shots w/ Sandisk Extreme Pro @ max 90MB/s write. By estimation, the result means the internal buffer for 70D might be about 5XX MB. Do you thing it is enough for the shooting raw video or it reflects the writing speed for 70D is still under limitation? It looks better than 60D but not much. I still doubt that 70D can't be raw video shooter even ML is able to support the camera.   Let's discuss

Not surprised. Sigma OEM the aspherical lenses for Leica long time ago. Even the APO lenses also made by Sigma. Leica is able to design but not able to produce by herself. That's why Sigma can produce high quality ART series lenses.

  Beware that if 7D mk II uses dual DIGIC 5+, Magic Lantern may not work on this. I have hope on 70D for its capability of UHS-1. The pity thing is we are not able to use HDMI for recording.  :wacko:

Just confirm the camera supporting UHS-1 high speed card. I am speculating that 70D may able to shot FullHD RAW since the continuous shooting rate is 7fps and 16 RAW which means the camera contain a larger buffer than 60D. That might be hope other than the 5D Mark III

I have recently done my test on 60D. I used Sandisk Extreme HD 32GB UHS-I 45MByte/s and just got some depressive result. Tried 1440 X 804 and 960 X 480 both at 24fps. ML firmware displayed that the witing speed just reach 20-24MBytes.  60D still encounters the bottle neck on writing speed and buffer clearing    1440 X 804 stopped at 140 frames (so bad) 960 X 480 (1400 frames)   The DNGs were not rendered into movie because the ISO is high that looks too noisy to render a good clips. The 2nd chance might need an Extreme Pro  64GB 95MB/s card to break through. But what I worry about is that 60D lames  in high speed writing and just waste the potential of Extreme Pro. So pity that 7D still needs to wait for enable the RAW video fuction. It is the last hope of Raw video on APS-C camera.

I have done some research of 700D, 650D, 600D & 60D for their internal buffer size according to their continuous shooting maximum capacity. Here is the spec of each camera:   700D: 5fps, max 30 jpg, 6 RAW 650D: 5fps, max 30 jpg, 6 RAW 600D: 3.7fps, max 34 jpg, 6 RAW 60D: 5.3fps, max 58 jpg, 16 RAW   We may now find that 60D should have a much bigger buffer size from the capacity of 16 RAW. As a RAW is about 22MB for 18MP image, the buffer size might be about minimum 112MB(22MB X 5.3fps) to 352MB (22MB X 16fps). I have tested with my 60D and use S-RAW(4.5MP), then I can reach about maximum 30fps before it pauses.   Now we know the value of 60D and the X0D series later. That’s comprehensible because 60D used to be the first swirl monitor design on EOS series which aims on video shooting. Bigger buffer and writing speed is more guarantee for the reliability of video recording. 50D is also able to shoot 16 RAW@6.3fps rate.   My prediction is ML for 60D may able to record DNG like other higher class EOS. I may change my plan of selling my 60D.  The next thing that may excite me should be EOS-M taking DNG movie, if it is possible, 5D series might still need to worry quite a lot.

I am new to video and would like to ask some questions over AVCHD and H.264   I have an impression that AVCHD is a "compressed TIF file similar to the still image while H.264 is just a non-compressed JPG. Is AVCHD good enough as a compromise comparing with RAW footage? Which means in quality and the tolerance of post processing, the order should be RAW > AVCHD > H.264. Am I right in this point of view?   It makes me curious about the footage of RAW comparing with Sony which can apply Cine Style for FS series while Canon provides Canon Log Gamma. I am looking forward that there will be a comparison in the near future.  :)

Although Nikon 1 system own this superior spec for high potential of further development, that’s still a barrier of making this system getting popular for the film making market, which is the lens system.   If one have the experience of using Nikon 1 the first thing that you may dislike should be the lens. The optical quality of Nikon 1 lenses are really not bad but the operation is really suck that there is no mechanical or electro-control ring on the lenses. If you are a serious film maker, you might need to adapt the Super 16mm lenses from the used market. And of cause, the newbie might think that it is too complicate to handle and prefer to stay on the current DSLR market which all lenses are ready and the shallow DOF is more attractive from the DSLR.   I always wander should Nikon digs deeper into the film world or not. The history of Nikon is producing good still image quality rather than moving image, which Canon has involved into several decades already. If Nikon wants to remind the users that she can make good movie, some cine style lens must be made – large aperture, wide and ultra wide angle lens, manual focus and aperture ring just like what Canon used to make for Cinema EOS. The price range might be maximum 2/3 of the Zeiss product line. This market is niche but Nikon should be open mind to accept that the film makers have their own freedom of adjusting their combination.   If Nikon realize this earlier, they might acquire Blackmagic in early stage to make the movie system more mature. I think it is a little bit too late to let BM use M4/3 mount and now Nikon can’t dominate the film system anymore. The competition of film making is really hard now. Nikon has to face Canon EOS, M4/3(Panasonic, Blackmagic), Red and Sony in this moment. Especially Sony, she makes FS700 for a while and the low cost slow motion is already there. Nikon should act faster to release the high speed shooting function to draw attention. For me, 1080p@120fps is sweet enough to pay for it.

I have touched this phone and the final words I want to say is "when will Nokia make camera". Nokia is really in hell now and the only surviving reason is serving WP system like a guinea pig. Although the trend of using smartphone instead of compact DC is growing fast, it might still a smart move to concentrate on a strong and invaluable business rather staying in dying OS. I really want to see a point and shoot made with the 1/1.2 sensor and a prime lens with big aperture that can produce sallow depth of field. The image from 808 is really amazing! If it can support HDR as same as iPhone 4 than it should be better.