Phil A

This. Every review for the past decade has talked about firmware updates "hopefully the brand will do this of fix that". They never do. 
 
I'm in the Nikon ecosystem so I'm tempted to sell my xh2s for the ZR, but it's more of a sideways move. I'd lose open gate, and fuji has a great image. But the Fuji isn't reliable, especially with AF. 

Yep that's the kind of intermediary codec that the ZR needs. But only if Nikon doesn't cook it with that aggressive noise reduction. You know the drill, Fuji had similar issues I seem to remember you pointing out. 
Thing is, I don't buy cameras based on promised or wishful features anymore. Been burned too many times waiting for "coming soon" updates that arrive late, incomplete, or not at all. So as of right now, the ZR is off the table for me. It's not just the codec situation though tbh, the unreliable view assist/exposure tools and first gen quirks also give me cold feet. 
Good to know LT is officially on the roadmap, though.. great for early adopters but I think I'm done gambling on "maybe later". 
 

I’m not ‘waiting’ for it as such, but based on my S9 experience, it could be something pretty special.
If they get it right.
If they even make one…
I have gone backwards and forwards over what to do with my S9 that has been at times both A cam and B cam but due to me picking up a pair of S1RII’s mid last year, plus certain limitations of the S9 (mainly build), I was going to let it go…
But then too many times I have let stuff go and regretted it so I have repurposed it giving it an XLCS cage, super-lightweight tripod and the dedicated 2 lenses to it, the 18mm or 85mm f1.8.
I am hoping they do an S9II with a bigger screen à la ZR but with the S1I/R/E tilt option. And make it a bit more robust but spec wise, it’s already peak camera for my needs.
So @gethin maybe look at an S9 because straight out of the box, it’s very high spec and really it’s only the body that is a bit weak, but beef it up with a cage and it’s 💪
And used, pretty cheap!

I will wait until nikon fixes the h265 codec on the zr. Then I will buy it, I just can't shoot RAW video all the time.  the ibis I can work around, the AF seems pretty good, the image is gorgeous, not the fastest for photo's but for travel it looks like a dream camera (if they fix the h265 codec). 

I still wish them the best with their Eterna sales to anybody other than a few rental houses.  Other than 4:3 recording and more professional I/O, the much less expensive GFX 100 II has the same output.  Also, the autofocus in video is a bit ass on it and unlikely to be much better on Eterna.  😅
But you know, if you have some 1.8x anamorphics that cover a 44mm wide sensor that you've been champing at the bit to use or if you really wanna go overkill on your social media presence, that 4:3 mode is probably killer.  🤣

Ok, first 2 week trip behind with the ZR, 35mm F1.4, 50mm F1.2 and 135mm F1.8 Plena and here are some thoughts about the ZR.
First the good sides. The ZR screen worked well enough for nailing focus and exposure, even when shooting into shadows in bright daylight, but you may want to max the screen brightness. Zooming into the image with the zoom lever was handier than with Z6iii plus and minus buttons.
Even with screen brightness maxed occasionally battery lasted about as well as Z6iii with it’s EVF on normal brightness. Had to use 2nd battery only a few times during 4-5 hour shooting days in cold, 0 to 10C conditions.
Brought also the Smallgrip L cage with me, but did not use it, as it makes the ZR body taller than Z6iii and about similar weight. Even with 1kg lenses ZR felt quite comfortable to use and hold, but as a climber my fingers are not the weakest.
I missed the Z6iii EVF a bit, but used now also different shooting angles and heights more due to the bigger screen being handier than EVF for that.
32bit float saved the few clipped audios I had pretty well, even though I don’t know if it is true 32bit pipeline from Rode wireless go mic to the ZR. Still, the audio sounded a bit better than what I have gotten with Z6iii and Rode.
Exposing clips with R3D NE took at first a bit more time than with NRaw, but by using high zebras set to 245, waveform, and Cinematools false color and Rec.709 clipping LUTs it was quite easy to avoid crushed blacks and clipped highlights.
R3D NE has manual WB, so I took always a picture first and set the WB by using the picture as preset. It worked pretty well, but not perfectly every time.
Shot also NRaw in between to compare, but used auto A1 WB for it. It seems the auto WB did not always work perfectly either, but it was relatively easy to get R3D NE and NRaw to match WB wise in post.
In highlights R3D NE clips earlier than NRaw and it was clearly seen in the zebras and waveform. Still with R3D NE there was not much need to over expose and even with under exposing I needed to use NR only in a couple of clips, where I under exposed too much.
On last year’s trip with Z6iii, when it didn’t have the 1.10 FW yet, that improved the shadow noise pattern, I needed to use NR in many clips, until I realised I could raise high zebras from 245 to 255 without clipping.
With R3D NE and NRaw 4 camera buttons and one lens button was enough. I had 3D LUT and WB added to My menu and that mapped to a button, so it was quite fast to change display LUTs or WB. WB mapped directly to a button or added in i menu won’t let you set the WB by taken picture as preset. WB se to i menu let’s you measure the white point and set that though.
In post I preferred the R3D NE colors over NRaw in almost all of the clips I took, except in few clips where NRaw had more information in the highlights.
Changing NRaw to R3D with NEV to R3D hack brought NRaw grading closer to R3D NE, but they were still not exactly the same. NRaw as NRaw seemed to have more blueish image in some of the clips due to the blue oversaturation issue it has, but the NEV to R3D hack fixes that.
Then the bad sides. After coming home I picked the Z6iii, looked through it’s EVF, felt all of it’s buttons and thought, this is still the better camera, a proper one. Z6iii has also focus limiter and mech sutter which both I missed during the trip.
The worst part became pretty clear after every shooting day. Not the R3D NE file sizes itself, but the lack of software support to be able to save only the trimmed parts of R3D NE clips. Currently Davinci Resolve saves the whole clips without trims, even though NRaw works just fine, and Red Cine x pro gives an error during R3D trim export.
If you happen to fill 2TB card a day with R3D NE, you need to save now everything. I saved like 6TB of footage from this trip when it could have been only 600GB. If this does not get fixed I could as well shoot NRaw with Z6iii and get rid of the damn ZR. Changing trimmed NEV files to R3D does not work either, as Resolve does not import the files. ZR is fun to shoot, no doubt about it, but it’s R3D NE workflow is almost unusable at the moment, at least for my use. 

The new Canon RF 45mm 1.2 should fit ur taste.. similar rendering as the old EF 50mm 1.2 but much lighter and abit smaller.

Viltrox joined L mount a little later than those other systems, but I'm certain lenses will start appearing quickly.
Totally understand. There are valid schools of thought here: 1) the data image, change in post; 2) WYSIWYG. I also lean more for the latter, especially for stuff I'm too lazy to edit.
As things move forward, I'm understanding that most of the manufacturers are producing for the optically "perfect" image because they can. We're not seeing those headline lenses so much anymore like that Nikon 50mm 0.95 brick to showcase their engineering prowess. If they do that, it's to give us affordable lenses at previously unthought of focal lengths or smaller sizes. Lumix has a boring set of lenses that work very well and they can be workhorses, just nothing really amazing or ridiculously small (i.e. 14mm f/2.5, 20mm f/1.7). They insulted all of their users with that 26mm and I want to go back in time and erase its existence.

To be honest it's the less than stellar but fast & small third party lenses that I crave. For Fujifilm you have the Viltrox f/1.4 & f/1.7 primes. For Sony you have a ton of smaller lenses like the 24 f/2.8, 35mm f/2.8 or 40mm f/2.5 but also again third party AF lenses from Viltrox, TTartisan, etc.
I realize that the 1.8 primes from Panasonic are great, but they're not checking my criteria, I'd prefer them optically a bit worse but smaller with more character.
I remember when the vision for mirrorless cameras was that you could get lenses at the same performance at a smaller size... and now nearly everything that releases is a really big, technically ideal lens at a high price. I used to like lenses like the EF 50mm f/1.4 USM which were okish but had interesting rendering over the great but huge Sigma 50mm 1.4. Guess I'm just an old man yelling at clouds. 

The reality.
I am sure you can get more out of R3D than Lumix log, but at 5x the data rate.
But then again, I have seen the size of the Lumix raw files and they are over 10x log, so err, no thanks.
The actual reality is that no one will notice, especially as all they are interested in these days is the 60 second short on social media that can easily be shot on a phone or action cam...which coincidently, is exactly what I will be doing next year...
Should we care? Yes we should...but always within the realms of reality and that reality for me is I'm not going to be shooting data rates 5-10x what I already have that are already more than good enough, because where does it stop?
I still love the ZR, - I think it is THE camera of the year, all factors considered, but mainly for it's form factor and rear LCD, although I do wish that was tilt not flip out, but hey ho, not buying one so what does my opinion matter!

Why are you guys in such a bad mood this morning?
Is everyone a Roger Deakins now?
I'm not a professional, and a camera for less than 3K would be great for me. I film underwater every week, and sometimes I do small jobs too. Nevertheless, knowing that every time I film I bring home half a terabyte of stuff scares me, because I would also like to have the option to make some compromises.
Right now I film with a GH5MII, and I only use the ALL-I codec when I'm doing something special. Having a camera that only shoots RAW is too limiting for me. So yes I leave my garage sometimes but Nikon should address that. 😄

I got really excited for a second when I saw the EVF but that A7IV sensor is a buzzkill. For a video first camera I can't get around the 26ms rolling shutter. Unless you shoot static shots, this is just bad performance. I also find it insane Sony is still not offering resolution above 4K or internal RAW in 2025. For 3200€ I find that unforgiving considering you can get a used/grey FX3 for around that price. Not even going to mention the competition options.
Don't get me wrong, this is still a very solid hybrid camera with some worthy improvements but I'd still pick FX3 over it unless you absolutely need an EVF and even then an A7S3 would probably still give you a better image, especially low-light. Sony is still doing one step forward, two steps back.

I think it’s great.
Another camera that could have been great but isn’t so I have utterly zero interest in and therefore will not be spending any money on.
Keep it up camera industry, you are doing good and keeping my money firmly in my bank account 🫡

And a high quality LCD and not the piece of shite they decided to attach to this thing 😏
I get why they added the tilt EVF, even though I have zero personal interest in it, but the LCD quality just makes no sense to me.

It's 3200 EUR here in Germany compared to the A7 IV for 2100. This could have been an amazing camera if it came out a few years ago, now it's just kinda 'whatever' with the hardware limitations.
Personally I couldn't life with the rolling shutter, the PetaPixel video has shown well in some shots the kinda crazy wobble/jelly you can get shooting 24p handheld (same reason I hated my A6300 back in the day). But the real disrespectful part is the resolution of the display, that's like tech from 10 years ago with not even half the pixels of the FX30 screen.
I find the form factor great and if this would have had a sensor more like the Z6III / S1II it would have been an amazing option.

It's 3200 EUR here in Germany compared to the A7 IV for 2100. This could have been an amazing camera if it came out a few years ago, now it's just kinda 'whatever' with the hardware limitations.
Personally I couldn't life with the rolling shutter, the PetaPixel video has shown well in some shots the kinda crazy wobble/jelly you can get shooting 24p handheld (same reason I hated my A6300 back in the day). But the real disrespectful part is the resolution of the display, that's like tech from 10 years ago with not even half the pixels of the FX30 screen.
I find the form factor great and if this would have had a sensor more like the Z6III / S1II it would have been an amazing option.

It's 3200 EUR here in Germany compared to the A7 IV for 2100. This could have been an amazing camera if it came out a few years ago, now it's just kinda 'whatever' with the hardware limitations.
Personally I couldn't life with the rolling shutter, the PetaPixel video has shown well in some shots the kinda crazy wobble/jelly you can get shooting 24p handheld (same reason I hated my A6300 back in the day). But the real disrespectful part is the resolution of the display, that's like tech from 10 years ago with not even half the pixels of the FX30 screen.
I find the form factor great and if this would have had a sensor more like the Z6III / S1II it would have been an amazing option.

In 2011, I bought a used BMW Z4 (E89) for 37k€, 2 years old with 45k km. If I want to buy a used BMW Z4 (E89 from the last model years, not the current model) now that is twice as old with 100k km, it's at least the same but usually more expensive.
Inflation is a bitch, especially when the wages didn't keep up at all.
But I think the comment from EduPortas is probably right. They used to focus on quantities shipped with a gajillion of Canon Rebels and stuff. Many people bought a camera + lens kit, added a 50mm 1.8 and then never added to it. Now pricing has generally moved more upmarket into enthusiast territory. Less people buy gear but it's more expensive (probably with a higher margin). If you compare what Canon L EF lenses did cost, I feel we moved a lot into way higher priced R-mount L lenses, Sony GM, etc. All the lower tier market got eaten by Tamron, Sigma, Viltrox, etc. The Viltrox 23mm 1.4 is ok, the Fuji is better. But is it 3-4 times the price better? Most people shoot for Instagram and YouTube.

It's quite wild how the prices are going up. I'm a hobbyist so I'm too cheap to spend more than 2k, maaaybe 2.5k-ish, on a camera body. I'm always waiting for the inevitable massive price drops that come just a few months after release or try to find a used one. With the S1 II going up so far and the US tariffs, I wouldn't be surprised if a Sony A7V will go over 3k too.
An additional point of frustration is that I picked Fujifilm and their cameras are just straight up not available to buy. X100VI? Sure, for a 500 EUR mark-up from a scalper. X-M5? Never really materialized. I'm holding on to my X-T4 as a second body next to the X-H2s because I couldn't find a X-M5 when it came out. A brand specific issue is also that they have just too many models with not real focus. X-Pro, X-E, X-M, X-S, X-T (in two flavors), X-H, X-Hs.
Zero interest in the new gimmick they released, I can honestly not see who this is meant for. If you love INSTAX (which I do and own), this does not scratch that itch.

Then it’s a bit misguided because it creates negative marketing chatter that your products are overpriced and cause probably more loss than gain of new customers.
Just price it properly in the first place and earn some, rather than lose respect.

They're not. 
Source: How dependent is France on Niger's uranium?
 
It's 2025. Nearly everything is using globalized supply chains. Even local agriculture that produces food will use machinery, fertilizer, pesticides or something else from abroad. The ship for economic isolation has sailed, it's not the 19th century anymore.
While I'm sure there are things that need to be fixed about the world economy (e.g., labor practices in developing countries, adherence to environmental standards, etc.), this current disaster is not how anything good will result.
We truly live in the dumbest timeline.

They're not. 
Source: How dependent is France on Niger's uranium?
 
It's 2025. Nearly everything is using globalized supply chains. Even local agriculture that produces food will use machinery, fertilizer, pesticides or something else from abroad. The ship for economic isolation has sailed, it's not the 19th century anymore.
While I'm sure there are things that need to be fixed about the world economy (e.g., labor practices in developing countries, adherence to environmental standards, etc.), this current disaster is not how anything good will result.
We truly live in the dumbest timeline.

They're not. 
Source: How dependent is France on Niger's uranium?
 
It's 2025. Nearly everything is using globalized supply chains. Even local agriculture that produces food will use machinery, fertilizer, pesticides or something else from abroad. The ship for economic isolation has sailed, it's not the 19th century anymore.
While I'm sure there are things that need to be fixed about the world economy (e.g., labor practices in developing countries, adherence to environmental standards, etc.), this current disaster is not how anything good will result.
We truly live in the dumbest timeline.

I remember Grant saying the same thing in these presentations in years previous. And I remember looking for anything that explicitly stated "free upgrades for life included" and could never find it. People just assume this because that's how it's been so far.
I would hate a subscription model. Paying per major version would be fine, I would most likely skip a generation or two before feeling a need to upgrade. Same as I did with Adobe before their switch to subscription.
Assuming the AI stuff is the major cost driver that would cause a switch to a different model, it would seem fairer to attach the cost more to the AI stuff- you get basic models/capabilities with the regular Studio purchase, then can pay to add-on better models or faster processing etc.

Who says I changed what a user wrote?
Replacing a misleading and spammy youtube video with a picture is not doing that.
And it sends a message that if you don't check your sources, or post poor quality outlinks, you will have it deleted.
That's not about being unfair, that's about good moderation.
Why are you indulging an entitled whiner?
The joke was made clear by me in the comments and there are far greater controversies you should be upset about, maybe gaza or something, but not this.