IronFilm

I am in the wedding business, photography & video and have mixed views on this.
First of all, there is a lot more competition. a LOT more. Since I started out close to 20 years ago, there are at least as 10x as many offering a service.
Also, the competition is a LOT better than it ever has been, both in quality of output and in regard to marketing it.
Video is less crowded than photography however as the learning curve is steeper and the production times longer, - less appeal for many ie, less see it as a fast buck, whereas with photography, everyone with a camera thinks they can do it.
Bollocks, it takes years and dozens of different scenarios to get really good at it. I came from 5 years of college and uni photography and reckon it took me nearly 8 years until I felt I really knew what i was doing without having to really think about it.
Then there is this 'race to the bottom'. It's been talked about for years and to an extent, it is true...but at the same time, not completely.
The trick of it is twofold.
First, you need to be offering something that is on another level to 'the rest'. I am not saying you need to be the best in the world, but better than anyone else they will probably look at. Ideally, you need to have a number of 'points of difference' and deliver this message with clarity. People have increasingly shorter attention spans.
Second, you need to be found by the type of people that are your clients. This may only be 1% of the entire market. Or less. If you are trying to appeal to all and catch fish with a massive net, you might actually be better off with a rod and fishing for one species only.
In regard to the latter, you can try and have a broad appeal and try to snag that 1% through the sheer volume approach or target your marketing and have a much smaller volume of contact, but a much higher booking rate.
I've found the latter works for me and prefer the 'larger fish in the smaller pond' approach works better.
Over the years, I have seen so many 'young bucks' come into the industry.
First of all they are full of enthusiasm and it drives them for a while and all that energy helps compensate for the relatively low prices most charge, fully intending to put them up once established.
They then try to do that and the work begins to dry up. Most then give up and go back to their 9-5 day job with all it's securities when they realise the reality is not swanning around the world at their clients expense and editing on a laptop in coffee shops.
One other thing I have found is that 'good enough' is not good enough and you need to go above and beyond simply to maintain your position. It's extremely easy to get sucked downstream and incredibly hard to swim upstream/against the current.
The latter can be done, but to get that extra 10%, often requires another 100% effort. Is it worth it? Maybe...
But yes, I 'lose' out sometimes to the sub 500 photographer who either promises the moon on a stick, or more often than not, don't and they (the clients) know they won't be getting much...but that exists in all kinds of services. Or the client deludes themselves that the cheaper option will work out for them only to regret it. Doesn't help us if they do however as folks rarely pay twice and in weddings, never.
To conclude, another couple of attributes any small creative business needs are a thick skin and a lot of drive/determination.
I would not want to be starting out in photography/video today knowing what I know and would persuade my daughter against it.
The bottom line though is that there IS a market still and a very good one but it's a case of finding the right one for you and working it. Continually. Just like an athlete, there are some people who are naturally gifted, but they can and will be beaten by someone with not so far off genetics that grafts harder then the rest.
Oh and one other thought, I have tried several times unsuccessfully to get into the commercial market and in the end gave up concluding I could just not make it work for whatever reason, so I plod along with weddings which I genuinely enjoy shooting. Not overly keen on the whole industry and what goes on behind the scenes, but that is another story...

Sorry, both my kidneys are scheduled for the Z Cam S6

I expect nothing interesting from Sony, so it will be easy to go beyond my expectations..

I've heard the A7siii will make all cameras obsolete.

I think the delay in the A7Siii is obvious: the expectations/market has moved in a direction that outpaced Sony's tech and they're playing catch up. Last year was a huge year. Panasonic was still riding that GH5 wave for most of the year, until they announced their full frame camera. The full frame mirrorless announcements from Nikon and Canon. Nikon and Fuji made HUGE steps in their video capabilities. At the beginning of the year the A7III looked like a real impressive camera (and it still is despite its flaws) but by the end of 2018, not so much. Heck, the GH5s, and all of the new full frame mirrorless cameras even made their low light performance look less impressive: maybe not as good, but definitely in the ballpark. 
In a sense, they're probably not lying by saying that it's simple to add 4K/60p but to DO 4k/60p with their current mirrorless tech probably isn't so simple without overheating. The longer they wait though the bigger the expectations are going to be. It's not an enviable position to be in. At this point they're going to need to release something ground breaking because they've got a lot of companies gunning for them, and they're all very capable foes. 

It feels like people have been for years promising that when the a7S mk3 comes out then it "will kill all other cameras under $X"!! And yet.... we've yet to see it get released. And neither the a7S mk1 or a7S mk2 came anywhere near to "killing the competition".
Exactly!
 

I suspect this mythical a7S mk3 when released will be "better" than the BMPCC4K in a few ways, but definitely not all! The P4K will still be better in some areas. 
We're not going to see that happen in ten years time. 

3D printing has been promising to revolutionize our worlds, and it will.... but not to that extent, and definitely not in that time frame. (not unless you're meaning printing very basic parts like the camera shell, but really 95% is coming from eBay. And even then... I highly doubt it could be really better value than what a company with economies of scale could do)

Is a brand brand new product, hasn't been officially announced. 

An entirely different body design to the F4/F8 (but still great for bag use, not like that ugly duck which is the F1! UGH!), much smaller than the F4/F8 (but not as small as the MixPre3! Darn. I was hoping for that from Zoom with their next sound recorder)

Depending on its price/specs I might pre order it when the sales pages go up. 

However what I really want is that Scorpio recorder....   sigh

Anybody want my kidney?

Pre installed V Log means I have my fingers crossed it will have 10 bit??
Perfect timing for my birthday!
Holy crap, really, two cards?

Makes me worry for what its price will be! :-o

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.
 
 

Yeah, I think all E2-family cameras can do anamorphic.
They are considering a micro four thirds mount option for the S6 and are doing tests to make sure it works properly. They seem interested, and posted that the 0.64x speed booster works on the S6 with minimal vignetting. The mounts will not be removable, you have to pick which one you want upfront.

Indeed, I used to see Z Cam as a cheaper alternative to Panasonic, then they shifted to kinda be an alternative to BMD? And now they're looking to go head to head with Kinefinity??
Kinda funny that two F6 got announced this week which are very good value! One from Zoom, and one from Z Cam (ha!!! They both start with "Z" as well)
I hope so too! But it is looking unlikely..
 
 

This is the first time I've ever seen a thread redeemed by video game fanboyism ?

Wonder is there any 120p slowmo with it.

Let's hope that the big tube structure on the front is removable and can be replaced with sane (much shallower) mounts.

If said this before but I think we are going to see more innovation from smaller camera companies like Z Cam here in the pro-mirrorless-cinema realm. They will offer you more bang for your buck than the bigger guys minus probably stellar support when things go wrong.
As long as they can keep the quality of their products up, people will buy these simply because the big guys don’t offer them what they want for sub $3K.
Only bigger production companies will want cinema lines (and support) from the bigger companies.
And Id you already have all the other gear (Vmount batteries, monitor, Audio) these are incredibly cheap and will pay off quicker than having to charge rental for a $14,000 Canon cinema camera. 

because there weren't any other options before..keep that in mind, and have this conversation 5 years into the future, where P8K will be a reality, and Z has put 16 more cameras out, and DJI another 16, and Yongnuo another 4 e.t.c e.t.c
There are still people using 5DmkII and 70/80D as their only video cameras, this is about to change.
Also, your faith that A7sIII will be the camera that will end them all, and for 3.500$, is a bit naive. Sony will never give you a 3.5K$ camera with everything their 70.000+ full frame video cameras have, with the only difference of form factor, ND and a couple of connections!
Z can, and they will for 4.995$..

At entry level production I still see a lot more A7s and canon dslr than blackmagic cameras ( I owned 2 blackmagic cameras and 3 sony cameras )
The truth is that Canon and Sony are simply more convenient to use , you get better low light performance, autofocus, stabilization, size ....of course you loose on the codec side , but considering that most small production never budget proper color grading and that the content end up on youtube, that not as important as getting relatively clean image in a challenging environment .
My point is that , even at 5kusd for the 6kFF ( if they offer something similar to the MAVO , that an excellent price), they will still have to compete with a 3.5Kusd camera that will offer better performance and features overall.

You can get a a7III for 2k with probably the same sensor as the E2 6k FF , you loose slow mo and 10bits, you win autofocus and stabilization, better screen/evf and form factor.
and there is a 3k usd difference between the two option.
 

Just walk up and ASK people! 

Ask them what is their story

It feels like people have been for years promising that when the a7S mk3 comes out then it "will kill all other cameras under $X"!! And yet.... we've yet to see it get released. And neither the a7S mk1 or a7S mk2 came anywhere near to "killing the competition".
Exactly!
 

I suspect this mythical a7S mk3 when released will be "better" than the BMPCC4K in a few ways, but definitely not all! The P4K will still be better in some areas. 
We're not going to see that happen in ten years time. 

3D printing has been promising to revolutionize our worlds, and it will.... but not to that extent, and definitely not in that time frame. (not unless you're meaning printing very basic parts like the camera shell, but really 95% is coming from eBay. And even then... I highly doubt it could be really better value than what a company with economies of scale could do)

I hope in the future as the VFX tools we have at hand get better and as crew awareness increases then we'll be able to happily have booms in shot much more often for the sake of improved sound. This is already common place on many shoots such as "House of Cards", and advancing VFX technology will lead to an expansion of situations booms can be put into shot. 
https://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/adobe-releases-content-aware-fill-tool/
https://www.jldiaz.com.ar/lectura-en.php?name=houseOfCards
 

this is a killer feature and its only gonna get better, i was gonna start a thread. if you use it the right way in photoshop its unbelievebly effective and easy, so im really stoked to see where this goes
i love the boom removal usage that @IronFilm mentioned; stuff like that can be HUGE for an indy shoot too...!
the future of vfx is so bright its ridiculous lol. kids in the future will never kno the agony of the stuff we’ve had to learn ?

I hope in the future as the VFX tools we have at hand get better and as crew awareness increases then we'll be able to happily have booms in shot much more often for the sake of improved sound. This is already common place on many shoots such as "House of Cards", and advancing VFX technology will lead to an expansion of situations booms can be put into shot. 
https://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/adobe-releases-content-aware-fill-tool/
https://www.jldiaz.com.ar/lectura-en.php?name=houseOfCards
 

It feels like people have been for years promising that when the a7S mk3 comes out then it "will kill all other cameras under $X"!! And yet.... we've yet to see it get released. And neither the a7S mk1 or a7S mk2 came anywhere near to "killing the competition".
Exactly!
 

I suspect this mythical a7S mk3 when released will be "better" than the BMPCC4K in a few ways, but definitely not all! The P4K will still be better in some areas. 
We're not going to see that happen in ten years time. 

3D printing has been promising to revolutionize our worlds, and it will.... but not to that extent, and definitely not in that time frame. (not unless you're meaning printing very basic parts like the camera shell, but really 95% is coming from eBay. And even then... I highly doubt it could be really better value than what a company with economies of scale could do)