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I've never acted myself, but I used to be heavily involved doing backstage work for amateur drama groups (lighting, sound, scenery building etc.) so I've seen a lot of amateur acting go both well and badly. I think acting to an inanimate camera is probably quite difficult - the interaction and extra adrenalin provided by an audience often really helps. I've been at dress rehearsals where at the end you think 'Oh dear...it's miles off being ready', but the first night performance with an audience is 200% better. People seeing the performance/movie for the first time don't know the script or the movements, so as long as you stay 'in character' when things go wrong you can often ad-lib your way out of mistakes. But dropping out of character immediately says 'I've messed up'. I've worked on shows where sizeable chunks of the script have been skipped by an actor but the cast have held it together and got away with it. Remind yourself you're doing it for fun (I assume), so relax - it'll come out better if you're not worrying about every detail while you're performing.

If you prefer the 'look' from a particular camera, then I guess you should buy that one... But as soon as you take it outdoors under a broken cloudy sky and press the record button, the angle, intensity and colour of the ambient light will be constantly changing, giving you an ever changing palette of 'looks' that you didn't ask for... which as Kye suggested above you'll have to adjust for in post anyway to get a cohesive 'look'. (I was once on the top of a mountain pass, looking down a wide valley, in the aftermath of a storm the day before. The fast moving thick clouds meant it would change from bright sunshine to deep shadow every few seconds. It produced very dramatic lighting - and some nice stills and video - but setting camera exposure settings was almost a lottery...)

Something that people tend to forget is that products will have a performance tolerance range (nothing is perfect) so if you tested say 100 nominally identical cameras there would be performance and 'calibration' differences between them. I suspect that at the low-price end of things, per-unit testing doesn't go much beyond functional tests with a few basic performance tests and adjustments, with more detailed performance testing only done on a random sample basis (to check/ensure ongoing production quality). As chip datasheets often say about some spec parameters - 'performance guaranteed by design' i.e. we don't production test this performance parameter, or 'not 100% tested' i.e. we only do random sample testing of this. The 'analog' performance of image sensors, in terms of things like noise levels will vary - so you might be lucky and get a camera with a better than average sensor or unlucky and get a worse one - but most will be close to average. Consumer/Prosumer cameras are not intended to be calibrated scientific instruments (and supplied with 'traceable' calibration certificates as a consequence), so it doesn't surprise me that the same nominal exposure settings can produce different results on different cameras (especially between brands). Lenses can also have noticeable performance differences between samples of the same lens (de-centering is a common problem) - Lensrentals have highlighted this in some of the articles on their website.

As an electronics design engineer who has spent a large a proportion of my career designing video processing and transmission equipment, I find it almost unbelievable how bad the video image processing can be in some hybrid cameras sometimes. For example, look at the amount of false colour and aliasing there is in the FHD from the Sony A6600 versus the (four year older) Pana GX8 in the image below (grabbed from this DPReview video test chart ) Sony has much improved the false colour situation in the recent A6700, but aliasing is still an issue (full test chart ) : I well understand the issues of heat and power consumption in small battery powered devices, but e.g. Fuji and Panasonic can do it much better than Sony in comparable size cameras...

I agree with the comments from Kye and bjohn. I think you're getting a bit obsessive about small differences in DR, which in real world usage are unlikely to be significant (or that you'd notice after editing the footage). The two cameras are a bit chalk vs cheese anyway - one is hybrid-targeted, with a higher res sensor, mechanical shutter, a viewfinder, and more control wheels. The other is much more a dedicated video camera with (in theory) better on-board audio, fewer control dials, no viewfinder etc. When you are using a camera, I think things like how comfortable is to hold, how easy it is to operate the controls, how good the stabilisation is, can you customise the operation of the buttons and dials to suit your way of doing things etc., are far more important than small differences in performance. As an example, I held an A6700 in my hands a few days ago, and found it quite awkward to reach the 'record' button without moving my right hand from (for me) it's natural position on the grip. On my G9 and OM-1 I have the record function programmed to one of the front custom buttons (between the grip and the lens mount), which are under my fingertips when I've got my right hand around the grip. If you're at the stage where you are seriously considering buying the A6700, FX30 or ZV-E1, either try and get to a store where you can hold them in your hands, or make sure you buy from a place where you can return it without a problem - you might really like it when it arrives, or the opposite....

If you are really worried about that, buy it and stress-test it quickly so that you can return ASAP it if you're not happy. But if long recording times in hot environments are important to you, then you should be looking at a camera with a fan anyway (so you don't get distracted from the enjoyable creative stuff by worrying about overheating). Otherwise avoid leaving the camera out in hot direct sun/put a sunshade over it/put a white or reflective cloth over it. And turn it off when not using it, so it's not already hot before you press the record button.

If you want to minimise the risk buying used, buy the body from a major dealer who will provide a decent length warranty and allow you to return it if you're not happy with it e.g. in the UK, Wex offer a 45-day return period and provide 12-month warranties on used gear. MPB offer 6-month used warranties, as do some of the other major UK dealers. If you want long warranties, buy new and then buy an extended warranty from the manufacturer, or wait until the manufacturer offers a free extended warranty as a sales promotion on new bodies.

Yes, very much agree - it's why I don't own any huge/heavy long telephoto lenses even though I shoot some wildlife stills and video. 300mm on micro43 is close to the usable limit for handheld/leaning-on-something video even with Oly/OMDS levels of stabilisation, and you can get that with a relatively modest size and weight lens e.g. the Pana 100-300 F4-F5.6 is only 520g and 126mm long.

(My bold) I agree - I'm often taking video of moving vehicles where I also want the background reasonably in focus to provide context for the image, so shallow DOF just doesn't work for me/isn't the 'look' I want. (I also often shoot wildlife stills and video - the inevitable shallow DOF due to long lenses is a real pain to deal with when you might only have a few seconds to get the shot and there are tree branches/twigs in the way - which the AF prefers to focus on of course...) One reason I often prefer the Pana 14-140 F3.5-F5.6 over the 12-60 F3.5-F5.6 (which I also own) is that the aperture drop off with focal length is slower over the wide to mid range - though the 12-60 is a bit smaller and lighter and much cheaper used.

For me, out of the first two shots, artistically the upper/brighter shot is the better one - the 'bright lights' are properly bright (even if some are a bit burnt out) and the people are visible enough to add more interest to the scene. The lower/darker shot personally I think looks too dull (and less attractive as a result), even though I suspect it's a more accurate representation of the scene. As ever, it depends on how 'accurate' or how 'attractive' you want the shots to be (after they've been tweaked/graded/edited) i.e. the artistic choices...

I'm thinking about replacing my old Pana 20mm F1.7 (with slow and noisy AF) with the Oly 17mm F1.8. I find I commonly use around 18mm as a focal length on zoom lenses, so having a fast (and quiet) prime at that length makes sense for me.

My combo is usually the 14-140mm plus 25mm F1.8. On my last 'serious' trip (almost two weeks of railway video/stills photography in Southern California), I took a G9 + 14-140mm + 25mm F1.8 (for low light), used hand-held, with G80 + 12-32mm used as an occasional tripod-mounted 'B' cam. I took the G80 instead of the (smaller) GX80 because it has a mic jack. If I were doing a similar trip now I think it would be OM-1 (main) and ZV-1 (B-cam), but lens choice for the OM-1 would be harder as I recently bought a used Oly 12-100mm F4 IS Pro. It's much larger and heavier than the 14-140mm Pana, but it supports Sync-IS on Oly/OMDS bodies and the overall stabilisation performance is fantastic. If you buy a used Pana 14-140mm F3.5-F5.6, be careful about which version you are getting. Panasonic sold the Mk 1 version (H-FS14140) in two different markings - white, gold and red 'HD' lettering (earlier lenses) or all white lettering (later lenses). Then they updated it to the Mk 2 (H-FSA14140) with weather sealing and all white lettering. AFAIK all are optically the same, and support Dual-IS and Dual-IS2. I've come across dealers who've mixed up the white-lettered later Mk 1 and the Mk 2 versions in their used listings...

If you're not so bothered about the lens length when the camera is off, I'd seriously consider the non-pancake 14-42mm 'Mk ii' kit lens (the H-FS1442A, in the 3rd photo). The change in length over the zoom range is only about 10mm, it's got proper zoom and focus rings, supports dual-IS (with FW 1.1 installed) and is cheap used. Yes it's quite hard to beat the combination of size, performance and flexibility the GX85 (or GX9) offers. Main reason I bought a ZV-1 was to get a compact camera with better audio - versus the GX85 it has much better sound quality from the on-board mics plus a 3.5mm mic input. But otherwise the GX85 is nicer to use, and paired with say the Pana 14-140mm becomes super-zoom travel cam, which is smaller than 1" sensor cams like the FZ1000/FZ2000/RX10. Which is the main reason I still own one...

I think Pana versus Oly/OMDS lenses having zoom rings that operate in opposite directions is really annoying... Anyway, here are pics of the Pana 12-32, 14-42 PZ, 14-42 kit and Oly 14-42 EZ on my GX80 (all with filters on the front), with the zoom set to give maximum lens length (which was max wide on the Pana and max tele on the Oly - minimum lens length was in the mid zoom range). Also the ZV-1 set to maximum lens length, and a GX80+Oly14-42 and ZV-1 side-by-side. Note the 10cm mark on the ruler is approx. aligned to the front of the body, so the all the lens lengths are between 55mm and 60mm i.e. around the same... (The ZV-1 has a JJC filter adaptor stuck to the front of the lens tube - https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07GWQ6CXL )

I've got the Pana 12-32, 14-42 (non-pancake) and 14-42 PZ lenses, plus the Oly 14-42 EZ (power zoom) lens. No LX10 (or GX800 anymore), but my ZV-1 might be an interesting size comparison. I'll take some photos of the extended lenses on my GX80 with a ruler alongside. Note that of the pancake lenses, only the Oly has a focus ring, but it doesn't have any OIS - swings and roundabouts...

I agree - Sony will be doing image processing before the H.265 encoding (e.g. noise suppression, de-Bayering, sharpening etc.), whereas you might expect less of that happening with N-RAW - isn't it meant to be raw sensor data, warts and all? H.265 is a sophisticated codec, so I'm not that surprised 4:2:2 10-bit 8k video at 500Mbps from the A1 looks really good, especially on a static image like Andrew used in the N-RAW vs H.265 vs CDNG comparison article.

...which is why most non-enthusiast users would buy a decent phone and use it record video (the cost of an AX53 would pay for a pretty decent phone). The phone is very likely smaller than a camcorder and you definitely won't stand out in the crowd (even with a phone on a small gimbal). Camcorders have their niche, but it's been squeezed from both ends for years - at the lower end, phones and compact cameras getting decent video, MILCs at the other end. The AX700 has a modern 1" stacked BSI sensor with PDAF, but it's 116×89.5×196.5mm (W x H x L) and about 1 Kg. The small sensor AX53 is 73x80.5x161mm and about 600g. They're not especially small and light.

It's because if you have larger sensor the optics get larger as well - the sensor in the AX53 is 1/2.5" size - this is very small and allows an internal 20x zoom to be fitted inside a small (but not tiny) body. Put in a 1" sensor (which is about 4x the sensor area) with an internal x20 zoom lens and the body would get much larger and heavier. The next level up in the Sony range is the AX700 with a 1" sensor but only a x12 zoom - it's around 2x the weight and 2.5x the price. That takes it into the price area of a good MILC with a superzoom lens e.g, the A6700 with 18-135mm lens bundle is about the same price as the AX700, but has an APS-C sensor with 4x the area of a 1" sensor, weighs less and can record 10-bit 4:2:2 4k60p & 4k120p video.

I doubt it - for example, AFAIK including MPEG/AVC/HEVC in a product requires license fees to be paid to the patent holders (normally via a patent pool licensing organization). As end users we don't usually see those fees directly, because they are paid by the companies selling the products i.e. the fees are included in the purchase price.

intoPIX and Fraunhofer IIS are the two major contributors to the JPEG XS patent pool - https://www.jpegxspool.com/ and https://www.jpegxspool.com/s/JPEG-XS-Patent-Pool-Licensed-Patents-01-Oct-2023.pdf and https://www.tinynews.be/jpeg-xs-intopix-belgique/ As JPEG XS uses a wavelet transform, there is a reasonable chance TicoRAW uses a wavelet transform in its implementation, especially as JPEG XS has built-in support for RAW Bayer/CFA images - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JPEG_XS#Sensor_compression But as intoPIX is a developer of video compression technology, TicoRAW unlikely to be "just another branded version of something that someone else wrote."

Yes, their raw image sensor data compression system. Do you know what intoPIX actually use inside the TicoRAW implementation? Discrete cosine transform (DCT) isn't a compression algorithm, it's just a mathematical transform (of a block of pixels into spatial frequency coefficients) that's particularly useful for 'natural image' compression systems. It doesn't compress the data (in fact it increases it, as the output coefficients are usually higher bit depth to maintain precision), just transforms it into a different representation. That makes it much easier to discard/downgrade the coefficient data afterwards while minimising the impact on image quality - how clever you are at doing that (and the subsequent lossless data compression) is basically what determines the compression efficiency (data reduction versus perceived quality) of the image compressor. DCT is far from being the only game in town though - there are other front-end transforms in use as part of image compression systems. But I agree it's very popular (for very good reasons) in natural image compressors.

I think it's because Z-mount has the shortest flange to sensor distance of the common mirrorless mounts. So it's possible to make a (2mm thick!) E-mount to Z-mount adaptor e.g. the Megadap one, but not the other way round.

It's TicoRAW from IntoPIX - see https://www.dpreview.com/news/9624409613/nikon-is-licensing-intopix-s-ticoraw-technology-for-its-z9-camera-system and https://www.intopix.com/tico-raw

I think he was talking about N-RAW versus h265. The bitrates for N-RAW are here - https://onlinemanual.nikonimglib.com/z9/en/06_video_recording_02.html#id226OJ0Y0V5Z - 4.1k at 24 p is 350 Mb/s in Normal quality mode.

Capital M = 'mega' = x1000000 Lowercase m = 'milli' = /1000 So megabits per second = Mb/s.