Danyyyel

Finally got ZR yesterday. After changing all the settings like I have them in Z6iii, except Zebras and Vignette for R3D, got to test it a bit too.
1st, the screen is really good, you can change almost everything needed via the touch id and new menus quite quickly and intuitively. Need to figure out still what I need to set on those 4 custom buttons really.
The grip is tiny but feels ok in the hand. Still, with heavier lenses like 1kg 50 f1.2 and 135 f1.8 having the L shaped gage’s bigger grip seems to be a must, as it also has the Arca-swizz base plate for easy tripod use too. 
Quickly tested R3D NE vs NRaw to R3D hack with ISO 800 and 6400, and R3D NE was a bit cleaner in the shadows and seemed to hold the colors better too. 
The Z6iii EVF and all of it’s buttons in muscle memory seems still of course more convenient to use, but there is no going back to timy 3.2” screens after this. In various Panas and Z6iii I almost never used the screen.
Cinema tools has made a false color LUT, propably have to buy and try that too, if setting the zebras to 245 for R3D highlights does not work like zebras at 255 for NRaw.
The build quality seemed robust, but the shutter button needs a bit heavier press. Could not find the focus limiter in the menus either. Hopefully the weather allows to take both ZR and Z6iii outside, and see how the ZR handles, and what the footage looks like.
 

I have been a pro photographer for 20 years now and live in a tropical island with lighting ratios you can't even imagine in most countries. This is why I have been always very sensible to Dynamic range result/progress/testing for the last two decades, as most of the population including me are darker skin and we have very hard light. During that time I saw the first digital cameras (I would say from 2 to 3rd generation) depending on how you count, go from about 10 to 14-15 (SNR) DR test in RAW, as contrary to most videographers, photographers been shooting in raw for decades. I have seen what a 10 stops DR camera image look like and my ZR is no way as bad as this. Last week I had to film some B rolls for the launching of an international car brand here, where we had to mix some of our country shots with their own media. And as I had little time, I had to go around and shoot in less ideal conditions with harsh middle day shoot and some with harsh backlight and I had to dig deep into the shadows. This is start of the summer in the southern hemisphere, so the light was already hard even not quite as from December to March. 
So to come back to CineD, I have enough experience to know their numbers/conclusion are just BS. In fact they are some of the reference that have educated me, mostly with the latitude test, which I consider the best test today. But when you take RAW numbers and pit it against mostly compress/NR based codec, guess what, it is disingenuous. Because if you had watched DR test for the last decade with Xyla charts and Imatest, you would know that Raw data tend to score much less because of noise, but in that noise is still a ton of Data. Gerald Undone who is himself not a Nikon Fan, does the explanation very well in the ZR dynamic range test. First he got 10.9 stops at 0.5 medium noise rating, which strangely jumps just a little bit to 11.1 on a normalized 4k timeline, and just adding a little NR, where as he says the details in the shadows are still very high he reaches 12.6. This is in the RED Komodo X range. I have seen other test from french (I am a french Speaker) to even Korean which were around same numbers and which corelate with multiple side by side test. And no way their are 2.5 stops difference between the KX and the ZR!!! But it is not the first time I see them cooking their numbers to support some kind of narative. But this time it was the exact opposite for the Sony A9iii. The one with the Global shutter that even with your eyes could see with a bad DR, but I remenber the guy putting so much NR to get 9STOPS of exposure latitude, to say it had great latitude. Yes it is a 1080p image, but doesn't mean it has 1080p details, which I pointed in the comments.

I found a false color LUT for ZR in a chinese forum. It was on a Chinese cloud host unavailable for foreigners, so I got it and uploaded to jotta:
https://jottacloud.com/s/433167a024c75694baa94438259ee5d1b8e

I have been a pro photographer for 20 years now and live in a tropical island with lighting ratios you can't even imagine in most countries. This is why I have been always very sensible to Dynamic range result/progress/testing for the last two decades, as most of the population including me are darker skin and we have very hard light. During that time I saw the first digital cameras (I would say from 2 to 3rd generation) depending on how you count, go from about 10 to 14-15 (SNR) DR test in RAW, as contrary to most videographers, photographers been shooting in raw for decades. I have seen what a 10 stops DR camera image look like and my ZR is no way as bad as this. Last week I had to film some B rolls for the launching of an international car brand here, where we had to mix some of our country shots with their own media. And as I had little time, I had to go around and shoot in less ideal conditions with harsh middle day shoot and some with harsh backlight and I had to dig deep into the shadows. This is start of the summer in the southern hemisphere, so the light was already hard even not quite as from December to March. 
So to come back to CineD, I have enough experience to know their numbers/conclusion are just BS. In fact they are some of the reference that have educated me, mostly with the latitude test, which I consider the best test today. But when you take RAW numbers and pit it against mostly compress/NR based codec, guess what, it is disingenuous. Because if you had watched DR test for the last decade with Xyla charts and Imatest, you would know that Raw data tend to score much less because of noise, but in that noise is still a ton of Data. Gerald Undone who is himself not a Nikon Fan, does the explanation very well in the ZR dynamic range test. First he got 10.9 stops at 0.5 medium noise rating, which strangely jumps just a little bit to 11.1 on a normalized 4k timeline, and just adding a little NR, where as he says the details in the shadows are still very high he reaches 12.6. This is in the RED Komodo X range. I have seen other test from french (I am a french Speaker) to even Korean which were around same numbers and which corelate with multiple side by side test. And no way their are 2.5 stops difference between the KX and the ZR!!! But it is not the first time I see them cooking their numbers to support some kind of narative. But this time it was the exact opposite for the Sony A9iii. The one with the Global shutter that even with your eyes could see with a bad DR, but I remenber the guy putting so much NR to get 9STOPS of exposure latitude, to say it had great latitude. Yes it is a 1080p image, but doesn't mean it has 1080p details, which I pointed in the comments.

I have been a pro photographer for 20 years now and live in a tropical island with lighting ratios you can't even imagine in most countries. This is why I have been always very sensible to Dynamic range result/progress/testing for the last two decades, as most of the population including me are darker skin and we have very hard light. During that time I saw the first digital cameras (I would say from 2 to 3rd generation) depending on how you count, go from about 10 to 14-15 (SNR) DR test in RAW, as contrary to most videographers, photographers been shooting in raw for decades. I have seen what a 10 stops DR camera image look like and my ZR is no way as bad as this. Last week I had to film some B rolls for the launching of an international car brand here, where we had to mix some of our country shots with their own media. And as I had little time, I had to go around and shoot in less ideal conditions with harsh middle day shoot and some with harsh backlight and I had to dig deep into the shadows. This is start of the summer in the southern hemisphere, so the light was already hard even not quite as from December to March. 
So to come back to CineD, I have enough experience to know their numbers/conclusion are just BS. In fact they are some of the reference that have educated me, mostly with the latitude test, which I consider the best test today. But when you take RAW numbers and pit it against mostly compress/NR based codec, guess what, it is disingenuous. Because if you had watched DR test for the last decade with Xyla charts and Imatest, you would know that Raw data tend to score much less because of noise, but in that noise is still a ton of Data. Gerald Undone who is himself not a Nikon Fan, does the explanation very well in the ZR dynamic range test. First he got 10.9 stops at 0.5 medium noise rating, which strangely jumps just a little bit to 11.1 on a normalized 4k timeline, and just adding a little NR, where as he says the details in the shadows are still very high he reaches 12.6. This is in the RED Komodo X range. I have seen other test from french (I am a french Speaker) to even Korean which were around same numbers and which corelate with multiple side by side test. And no way their are 2.5 stops difference between the KX and the ZR!!! But it is not the first time I see them cooking their numbers to support some kind of narative. But this time it was the exact opposite for the Sony A9iii. The one with the Global shutter that even with your eyes could see with a bad DR, but I remenber the guy putting so much NR to get 9STOPS of exposure latitude, to say it had great latitude. Yes it is a 1080p image, but doesn't mean it has 1080p details, which I pointed in the comments.

I have been a pro photographer for 20 years now and live in a tropical island with lighting ratios you can't even imagine in most countries. This is why I have been always very sensible to Dynamic range result/progress/testing for the last two decades, as most of the population including me are darker skin and we have very hard light. During that time I saw the first digital cameras (I would say from 2 to 3rd generation) depending on how you count, go from about 10 to 14-15 (SNR) DR test in RAW, as contrary to most videographers, photographers been shooting in raw for decades. I have seen what a 10 stops DR camera image look like and my ZR is no way as bad as this. Last week I had to film some B rolls for the launching of an international car brand here, where we had to mix some of our country shots with their own media. And as I had little time, I had to go around and shoot in less ideal conditions with harsh middle day shoot and some with harsh backlight and I had to dig deep into the shadows. This is start of the summer in the southern hemisphere, so the light was already hard even not quite as from December to March. 
So to come back to CineD, I have enough experience to know their numbers/conclusion are just BS. In fact they are some of the reference that have educated me, mostly with the latitude test, which I consider the best test today. But when you take RAW numbers and pit it against mostly compress/NR based codec, guess what, it is disingenuous. Because if you had watched DR test for the last decade with Xyla charts and Imatest, you would know that Raw data tend to score much less because of noise, but in that noise is still a ton of Data. Gerald Undone who is himself not a Nikon Fan, does the explanation very well in the ZR dynamic range test. First he got 10.9 stops at 0.5 medium noise rating, which strangely jumps just a little bit to 11.1 on a normalized 4k timeline, and just adding a little NR, where as he says the details in the shadows are still very high he reaches 12.6. This is in the RED Komodo X range. I have seen other test from french (I am a french Speaker) to even Korean which were around same numbers and which corelate with multiple side by side test. And no way their are 2.5 stops difference between the KX and the ZR!!! But it is not the first time I see them cooking their numbers to support some kind of narative. But this time it was the exact opposite for the Sony A9iii. The one with the Global shutter that even with your eyes could see with a bad DR, but I remenber the guy putting so much NR to get 9STOPS of exposure latitude, to say it had great latitude. Yes it is a 1080p image, but doesn't mean it has 1080p details, which I pointed in the comments.

R3D NE, NRaw, Prores and H.265 compared by Cinema Tools. 
Not that much difference between R3D and NRaw, but not sure if they exposed according to this Recommended Zebra pattern values for R3D NE footage at Different ISO levels document. https://download.nikonimglib.com/archive8/ocJ930074UNE07okE3j44a40zA01/R3D_NE_datasheet_for_Zebra_pattern_(En)01.pdf

Q&A from Mark Bone 
 

They are from the same sensor and if the ZR can achieve the same as the S1ii, then it would already be very very good (RED Raptor territory). The S1ii has the DR boost mode which showed 10 stops of latitude, that is Alexa LF level, but with 27ms, which is not great at all. 

Nice video from Nikon India.
 
 

You seem to post nothing but angry negative stuff.  Why waste your time with all of us talentless hacks?

Another very nice video 
 

Funny how the ZR has reached legendary status even before its launch. Youtubers getting destroyed in the comments when making some stupid comparison. This is one example, but I have seen others... if you would have told me a Nikon camera would have got so much support, I would not have believed it. They really have got some momentum, I hope they try at least to satisfy the request of the people toward the ZR, because it is their Canon 5DmarkII moment.
 

Funny how the ZR has reached legendary status even before its launch. Youtubers getting destroyed in the comments when making some stupid comparison. This is one example, but I have seen others... if you would have told me a Nikon camera would have got so much support, I would not have believed it. They really have got some momentum, I hope they try at least to satisfy the request of the people toward the ZR, because it is their Canon 5DmarkII moment.
 

The R3D NE is only available in bitrates similar to N-RAW high quality, not normal, which is what many people seem to be complaining about. 

I noticed that in Cinema Tools comparison between Nikon Z6 III and Sony FX3 in the first section both cameras use x265 codecs. Watched it on big OLED TV and didn't notice any visible differences in color. IMHO Nikon x265 is perfectly usable option if maximum compression and smaller files are needed. If still in doubt about x265 quality, ProRes 10 bit 4:2:2 at 4K is good alternative. 
Here are the compression ratios of all Nikon codecs in Z8. We can easily extrapolate them to Z6 III / Zr
https://zxi.mytechroad.com/blog/photography/nikon-z8-prores-prores-raw-bitrate-and-compression-ratio/ 
NRAW / RED RAW normal has a compression ratio of 7.5 which is comparable to BRAW 8:1. NRAW / RED RAW high quality - 4.5 compression ratio comparable to BRAW 5:1. Those are very good compression ratios. ProRes HQ 422 10Bit - 5.2 ProRes RAW - 2. We have several RAW or non RAW codecs and compression options.
Last Z6 III firmware version 2.0 brings shutter angle. Z6 III has wave form too. The few options that are missing are open gate, anamorphic desqueez and LUTs. I don't need the first two and can have the last one with external monitor.
Overall Nikon Zr / Z6 III are great cameras and quite affordable compared to the image quality in video they give. 

I still have problem with Gerald Undone, and this is exemplified with Canon C50 vs Nikon ZR review. I don't question his numbers, but how he interpreted them for his bias. Man pissed on the ZR t every corner, but excused the worst or the worst for Canon. The simple example is the ZR micro hdmi vs Canon C50 lack of IBIS. Yes it is an inconvenience the ZR doesn't have a full size hdmi, but it can be remedied with a 100 USD cage plus lock. But what about the lack of IBIS, you would need a full set of big supporting gear. Either a tripod, shoulder mount or gimbal. But hey, his excuse is that he talked with some first AC, and they told him that they prefer the sensor to be locked, as if the C50 principal use will be on movie sets!!!!!
He is revolting, how dare Nikon put cinema on the ZR, but does he think that the ZR/C50/Fx3 will be primarily use on cinema sets!!! Is he crazy, 99.9% of their use will be in events, corporate videos, weddings, reportage, social media content creation etc. At the top you will find them used on small to average advertising production, short films, small to no budget films. And in rare case as specialist camera like crash cam, in higher end production. But again in those 99.9% cases, stabilization is a big big plus for those production. But hey, Nikon dared to put Cinema on the ZR. I mean a camera that has better image than 90% of digital camera just 5 years ago. 

Among all the firmware requests by YouTubers and RED shooters, this one was almost out of the radar. Which tells me is an indirect response to whining about raw file sizes. Which means an internal lower bitrate R3D NE became even less likely. 

If it is true, for me, the pefect workflow for RAW use, will be the 4k Nraw converted to RED raw. As it should be around 350 Mbs, which is very good for RAW. The only thing I don't know is how do they get this from a 6k sensor. In Gerald Undone, it did look a bit mushy, but I don't zoom 400% in my shots. The 4.1 k from my Z9 is perfectly usable. But in this case it is just half of the pixel.
 

I've noticed this in a couple reviews. Kinda surprised because the h265 on Z8/Z9 is quite good, even when compared to NRAW. So I do wonder if the h265 on ZR is somewhat "bad" maybe perhaps as noted above to circumvent overheating. I like having options on a camera but if the h265 is horrible than yeah that means this is an ultra high bitrate cam only. 
..which kinda leads me to ask who would prefer the ZR to a Z8? both are around the same price here in EU.

So this is a very good test of the ZR. I don't know if the english AI translation is 100% correct, but anyone can try it. He was ecstatic from the start about the DR of the camera and did a latitude test, using middle grey and overexposing and underexposing to see the level before clipping the highlight and the noise barrier.
This test is very good for the ZR as DR/Latitude test have been a bit all over the place. If you watched the CVP test, it was like 6 at best 7 stops of latitude!!! The ZR was clipping even before the Z6III !!! My guess is most of the test were done before Davinci last update to incorporate REDraw NE etc. And the guys were using REDsoftware to convert the files in Tiff etc. and it might be that file did lose some information. He is getting 5 stop over and 3 to 4 stop below. So, a 8 to 9 stops of latitude, at nine it is huge. If you watch CineD lab test, you are in the RED raptorX, Panasonic S1ii territory. The Z9 approaches that, but most of the other Sony cameras (but mostly in compress format) like the Sony A1, Sony Venice (RAW) etc are at 8 stops. In their test, their is only the Sony Burano, Alexa LF at 10 stops and the Alexa 35 at 12 stops!!!
His complain is like everyone about micro HDMI, and huge file size. I sincerely hope Nikon does give us a lower bitrate REdraw. He also says the h265 is bad, my guess it is that when you get use to that RAW, you see everything around bad. Matti Haapoja had the same reaction when comparing the ZR side by side with the Fx3. He then changed after using the h265 a bit more and said it was at least equal to the fx3 or better. Nikon Zr is its on worst enemy, when people compare its h265 to the raw, because the raw is so good, they feel the h265 is bad. But in the end very very positive about the camera.  
 

I'll be honest. If anyone is starting from zero (including myself) - we'd all jump on this...

In fact, if anyone asked me... "which one should I go for".... this is it.

Its the same price as a Canon R7 (more or less, no matter where you are coming from with more features).

Size comparison site updated their list.
ZR vs. FX3

ZR vs. S9

And C50

lol

Agreed and one of the reasons why as much as I like the look of the new Canon, the lack of IBIS is a no go for me and if that puts me in the camp of being a non-serious filmmaker, 🤷‍♂️
I also do not want to and will not rig anything up so the micro hdmi I could not care less about.

I will never understand this thinking when someone likes photography or videography. Today the only true thing they are changing in phones is the camera. My 2 years old Samsung will handle all my social media or call perfectly. Why not invest in a camera and lens, that will be their for the next decade, rather than buy a new phone every 2 3 years for 1000 USD and more, that will sorry to say, never match a FF camera.