Phil A

That's a key point.  Or "Kye" point, if you will.  My handheld shooting drifts and sways a bit, as I like that sort of kinetic visual energy.  Not all IBIS handle this camera movement AND stabilization elegantly.  Rapid shifts of the image that are unwanted can happen.  Fuji is a disappointment in this regard and it makes shooting my style of video with my X-T5 pretty much useless.  Meanwhile I can "dance" pretty good with LUMIX and Olympus.

This is interesting to see whether internal H.265 will be better than shooting R3D NE and converting it to H.265 RED Log3G10 with 500Mbps bitrate in Resolve.
R3D NE bitrates are not that bad, but not having the possibility to save trimmed R3D NE files as R3D NE is THE problem. 
Shame on Nikon and RED if they don’t  fix this. With NRaw it works, so it is up to RED SDK to support R3D NE trim.

According to Brandon Talbot, Nikon is working on fixing H.265 and adding RED Log3G10 as an option for it besides N-LOG. That will make the camera tremendously more useful for the majority of normal users who don't always want to shoot R3D NE.

According to Brandon Talbot, Nikon is working on fixing H.265 and adding RED Log3G10 as an option for it besides N-LOG. That will make the camera tremendously more useful for the majority of normal users who don't always want to shoot R3D NE.

Luckily photography/videography are my hobby so my decisions don't need to make any sense... so I just bought a new-in-box Nikon ZR & a 40mm f/2, both for 30% off. Same store had a Megadap ETZ21 Pro for half price.
So far having a blast with the camera.. I like the form factor a lot and the screen is just exciting, both the IBIS & AF are easily better than my Fujifilm X-H2s. The H.265 is definitely subpar, but it's still ok for social media use because once it's 1080p on a phone, anything will look good.
You should buy things the way they are now, but I sure am hoping they'll bring a firmware update to bring the H.265 to the same level as in the Z6III.

Luckily photography/videography are my hobby so my decisions don't need to make any sense... so I just bought a new-in-box Nikon ZR & a 40mm f/2, both for 30% off. Same store had a Megadap ETZ21 Pro for half price.
So far having a blast with the camera.. I like the form factor a lot and the screen is just exciting, both the IBIS & AF are easily better than my Fujifilm X-H2s. The H.265 is definitely subpar, but it's still ok for social media use because once it's 1080p on a phone, anything will look good.
You should buy things the way they are now, but I sure am hoping they'll bring a firmware update to bring the H.265 to the same level as in the Z6III.

According to Brandon Talbot, Nikon is working on fixing H.265 and adding RED Log3G10 as an option for it besides N-LOG. That will make the camera tremendously more useful for the majority of normal users who don't always want to shoot R3D NE.

According to Brandon Talbot, Nikon is working on fixing H.265 and adding RED Log3G10 as an option for it besides N-LOG. That will make the camera tremendously more useful for the majority of normal users who don't always want to shoot R3D NE.

Luckily photography/videography are my hobby so my decisions don't need to make any sense... so I just bought a new-in-box Nikon ZR & a 40mm f/2, both for 30% off. Same store had a Megadap ETZ21 Pro for half price.
So far having a blast with the camera.. I like the form factor a lot and the screen is just exciting, both the IBIS & AF are easily better than my Fujifilm X-H2s. The H.265 is definitely subpar, but it's still ok for social media use because once it's 1080p on a phone, anything will look good.
You should buy things the way they are now, but I sure am hoping they'll bring a firmware update to bring the H.265 to the same level as in the Z6III.

Unfortunately the Beta phase via Testflight is full and you can't join anymore it seems. I hope it'll release soon to the AppStore as it's a lot more useful than the official Nikon app.

I don’t really agree with “if you can’t beat them, join them” attitude to stuff like this.
Being a right wing imbecile is very much on the rise but it doesn’t mean we should just fall into line with it.
AI should be used for taking away mundanity like doing the dishes and laundry from our lives to free us up to do the fun and creative stuff not steal that from us.
I’ve got admiration for whoever’s work was used to “train” this but only contempt for those who are facilitating and grifting on the blatant theft of original work.
Do you not see that these tools that you are espousing will only make that situation immeasurably worse ?
This will literally give these people the ability to say “yeah just make that last one again with a slight variation and set in a different location” and churn this shit out even faster and with waaayyyy more profitability than they do now ?

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.