Robert Collins

Wouldnt be at all surprised if this is not an identical part to the one in the A7riii. Made by Nidec Copal. 

If we assume the most probably outcome, it's that the Z7 4K looks like the D850 and the Z6 4K looks like the A7 III.
The Z7 4K in full frame mode is excellent, same as my D850. A tiny bit of aliasing on very high contrast diagonal edges, but that is to be expected going 46MP down to 4K. There are no real issues, honestly, same as D850 which I loved. It's detailed, it's cinematic, it's got a ton of dynamic range and a nice codec, with great colour science. Rolling shutter is well controlled. Switch to APS-C mode and it is supersampled from 5K, just like the D850 and the A7R III. In full frame it is slightly superior to the A7R III, slightly smoother looking and less aliasing.
Now the Z6 we are told by Nikon is full pixel readout in full frame (like A7 III) but the APS-C mode has to be upscaled from something like 3K, again same as A7 III. So the Z7 is going to have the better APS-C 4K, and the Z6 will have a MARGINALLY better full frame 4K image assuming it does indeed ape the A7 III's full pixel readout (6K to 4K).
Until the Z6 actually arrives, we won't know for sure, and there may be issues we're not yet aware of or Nikon might decide to take features out, or reduce their potency. On paper, the specs look fine, but the devil might be in the detail.
If it works out as expected, the Z6 is going to be a big fat bargain, and preferable to the A7 III taken as a body in isolation... Once you start talking lenses, adapters, etc. Then it gets more complicated.

What struck me most about the presentation was how 'photography centric' it was. It was 95% about photography. The presentation was titled 'Lumix - changing photography'. There were 3 Lumix brand ambassadors - all of them photographers. When the slide with the two cameras came up - the high resolution camera didnt even mention video....

My guess is that their 'photographer brand ambassadors' made it clear to Panasonic that an M43 sized sensor simply doesnt cut it in the professional 'photography' market and that this is a market that they feel they need to be in (and I suspect the G9 hasnt sold well). So Panasonic are going FF mainly to try and capture the pro photography market. Comments about 'best possible codec' are entirely meaning less and cant be conflated into 'internal raw recording' - noone is going to say that they plan to have a 'crummy video codec.'

Lol, welcome back to 5y ago with 1080p. 
By the way, from all videos I have seen it seems to me Z7 AF is actually better than EOS R for video. Everyone assume Canon DPAF is always the best but it does not seem that good in the R compared to other Canons. On the other end, the Z7 people had low expectation yet some footage are incredible AF wise

#QAnon #WWGOWGA

NO IBIS? This must be a joke. 
All companies keep saying 4K60P is difficult to achieve for FF because of heat and processing power. And now we would have 4K120p? 
All that hard to believe. Hope the IBIS is not true at least. 

I wouldnt be that optimistic about F mount lens via the FTZ adapter because the lens dont have the built in stepper motors needed for cdaf.
To quote Thom Hogan.
 In the continuous autofocus modes the Z7 isn’t a D850. Or even a D7500. This is particularly true with lenses on the FTZ adapter, which forces the camera to always use phase detect. In my initial opinion, the Z7 is substantively behind where the Sony A7Rm3 is for continuous autofocus sequences of objects moving towards you (even at a diagonal). 
My guess is that F mount users will have to eventually switch over to S lenses if they want to take advantage of the Z mounts dual cdaf/pdaf focusing system for 'fast' and 'accurate' focusing.

The Cameras

In this corner, we have the Sony F3--episodic TV and corporate/commercial workhorse, best known for its use on season 1 of Key and Peele and the feature film Safety Not Guaranteed. Super 35 2.4K sensor that downscales to 1080p in-camera. 10-bit output up to 4:4:4 RGB. 

In this corner, the Sony A7 III--a modern hit, barely out and already one of the most popular mirrorless cameras around. Full frame 24 megapixel sensor that downscales to 4K from both the full sensor and from the APS-C crop. 8-bit 4:20 internally, with the option for 4:2:2 externally. 

The Test
I generally light my work, so I thought I'd test with a scenario I often face: talking head interviews. One big soft key, a soft backlight, something splashing the background, maybe a practical. Now, this is a hella lazy, sloppy lighting execution--the backlight is a little too far around, background splash not nearly strong or interesting enough, and there's a huge bit of blank wall amidst the clutter--but it does contain some useful information. More on that after the camera notes. Just keep in mind that it was a rush job and try not to be too critical. 

Each camera used the same Leica R 35mm Summicron set to f/5.6. This was to keep color, contrast, and sharpness consistent, as not all my Rs match perfectly and I wanted any differences in the image to be down to the cameras. I did not adjust the tripod distance, instead opting to let precise frame matching go in favor of minimizing inconsistencies. I'll do another test that keeps framing identical. 

Since I unfortunately couldn't get ahold of a color chart for this test, I have a few various colored objects in the scene to act as references. The sweater is a deep forest green, the hat is a pale pinkish-red, the UHaul logo is a distinct orange, and the furniture blanket is a nice primary blue. They don't line up with anything specific on a vectorscope, but I find the subtle differences in how these colors, along with my skin tone, are rendered is quite telling. 

Yes, that is me in the video. I am not a model, or really comfortable on camera at all. My being in the hot seat was PURELY a matter of desperation, as my roommate was busy and I didn't have another day free to do the test. So you'll have to deal with my pale, blotchy face and greasy hair this time. 

The F3 has two sets of clips: one taken internally in XDCAM, one externally in ProRes HQ (10-bit 4:2:2). I don't have access to a 4K recorder, so the A7III files were all recorded internally to the SD card. 

If you have any other questions on my methodology please feel free to ask. Even with the studio conditions, it's very possible that something was overlooked. 

What to Watch For
Personally, these are the elements I found most interesting.
-The colors of the various objects listed above, as well as their relative brightness. The A7, for example, makes the blue moving blanket much brighter.
-The big patch of blank wall behind me is a great place to watch for midtone noise, compression artifacts, and banding. 
-The black portion of the moving blanket, back right corner by the boxes, and the shadow by my left ear under the hair are good spots to look at shadow noise/compression.
-Obviously, the face is there for skin tone reference. I'm pretty pale, and exposed a stop above key to keep noise down, as I generally do in a real interview. This pushed my skintones into the flattest part of the LOG curve, smoothing them out a bit, but in this scenario that's not entirely undesirable. Just something to keep in mind. Additionally, my eyes are a pretty deep shade of blue, with some green flecks. The cameras and color profiles render them with mixed levels of success.
-My hair, beard, and eyes are all good places to look at for fine detail rendering, noise, and moire/aliasing. 
-The lightbulb and background splash were an attempt to look at highlight roll-off, but upon review it doesn't seem all that useful. The next test will use a stronger light doing a better scrape for DR/gradient, as well as a bulb with a filament to see how each camera renders hot highlight detail.

The Footage
These clips are straight out of camera/recorder, with no grading or edits. I could've at least trimmed them for brevity/convenience, but I...didn't want to. So. Sorry. 

You'll find them at this link: https://drive.google.com/open?id=159ig4Dq7emsxIE6GWpwj8H9SX73XMSQU

Feel free to download them and play around. I can show you my grading results, but I find nothing helps more than massaging footage yourself.
Here are the settings for each clip:

F3
1. 1080p Cine1 F35Like ISO400 172.8* shutter f/5.6 (I don't know if F3 internal profiles suck or I just suck WITH them, but getting a good SOOC result with it still eludes me. Think I'll try the AbelCine stuff next.)
2. 1080p SLog1 SGamut ISO 800 172.8* shutter f/5.6 (ISO 800 is native in SLog, which is why it jumps here. Everything is otherwise identical.)
3. 1080p SLog1 SGamut ISO 1600 172.8* shutter f/5.6 (An attempt to test overexposure. In retrospect, I should've opened up to f/4 instead, but this still shows clipping behavior when cranking up ISO for exposure.)
4. 1080p SLog1 SGamut ISO 6400 172.8* shutter f/16 (High ISO noise test. The levels themselves are pretty good, so this is more a test of how much penalty you pay for cranking ISO to get by with smaller fixtures inside.)

A7III 
1. 4K Cine4 SGamut3.cine ISO 400 1/50 f/5.6 Full Frame (with +15 or so saturation. My favorite out of camera profile so far.)
2. 1080p Cine4 SGamut3.cine ISO 400 1/50 f/5.6 Full Frame
3. 4K SLog2 SGamut3.cine ISO 800 1/50 f/5.6 Full Frame (I prefer SLog2 to 3 for banding and skin tones. Like F3, 800 is native for SLog)
4. 1080p SLog2 SGamut3.cine ISO 800 1/50 f/5.6 Full Frame
5. 4K SLog2 SGamut3.cine ISO 1600 1/50 f/5.6 Full Frame
6. 4K SLog2 SGamut3.cine ISO 800 1/50 f/5.6 Crop Mode
7. 1080p SLog2 SGamut3.cine ISO 800 1/50 f/5.6 Crop Mode
8. 4K SLog2 SGamut3.cine ISO 6400 1/50 f/5.6 Crop Mode
9. 4K SLog2 SGamut3.cine ISO 6400 1/50 f/5.6 Full Frame

Again, I'm happy to clarify any questions on my methodology. This was mainly to give me a nice broad spread of information on how my most used settings compare for quality.
Conclusions

I'm more curious what you guys think, so I won't say too much right away. My main take-away is that the F3 is nowhere near obsolete yet...in fact, it's my preferred camera for noise, color, skintones, gradation, and overall look. The A7 has the obvious advantages of full frame, strong internal recording, size/weight, and IBIS. 

Next, I want to see how each camera does with fluorescent, LED, and daylight skintones, as well as mixed color temps, motion, compression/bitrate issues, DR, and resolution/detail. If you have any suggestions for future tests, or anything you'd like to specifically see compared, just let me know and I'll do my best to throw it in. 
Thanks, and hope you enjoy!
 

Interesting topic.
I remember a little while back a 'new poster' wrote a post about a DJI drone - great drone, really fantastic, you can buy one here.
Now when you buy a DJI drone, you register your drone with DJI. And I suspect that 'anyone' who registers with DJI gets approached to be an affiliate. (I certainly did.) And the affiliate plan is reasonably attractive - 4% of any purchase through your affiliate link. Admittedly I cant be bothered but I bet others find the offer potentially attractive (say if you are a student.)
So maybe what you are seeing is not 'plants'. Camera companies are just spending their marketing dollars differently. Bribing youtubers with jamborees and early  access to new product. And mobilizing their customer base through affiliate links.[

Yep..... bring back Ashton Kutcher.....

Interesting topic.
I remember a little while back a 'new poster' wrote a post about a DJI drone - great drone, really fantastic, you can buy one here.
Now when you buy a DJI drone, you register your drone with DJI. And I suspect that 'anyone' who registers with DJI gets approached to be an affiliate. (I certainly did.) And the affiliate plan is reasonably attractive - 4% of any purchase through your affiliate link. Admittedly I cant be bothered but I bet others find the offer potentially attractive (say if you are a student.)
So maybe what you are seeing is not 'plants'. Camera companies are just spending their marketing dollars differently. Bribing youtubers with jamborees and early  access to new product. And mobilizing their customer base through affiliate links.[

One other advantage of clear zoom is that it lets you zoom in and out while using it on many gimbals (including relatively in expensive ones.)

To understand Olympus's position you have to go back and look in recent history.
1) In 2008 its digital imaging was profitable and had annual sales of US$3bn. In the following 10 years sales have shrunk 85% to US$550m and the imaging division has lost money in 9 out of the 10 years.
2) For the current year Olympus forecasts a loss of US$70m which equates to US$150 on every ILC it sells.
3) So realistically management cant go to shareholders and say - we started the 43 format, lost money and closed it down - we started the M43 format and lost money. But we have a great idea - lets get into FF and directly compete with Nikon, Sony and Canon.
So where does this leave them? Well they can stick with M43 and hope it comes good. But Panasonic seems to be looking elsewhere (whether that is a good idea is another question)? (I am not really sure that Olympus has much faith - they have released 3 cameras in the last 2 years.) So they could exit the business altogether. 
Alternatively, they could turn themselves into being purely a lens manufacturer (more along the lines of Zeiss (cough, cough)) for existing mounts. This is where their value added/expertise really lies(and has synergy with their highly successful medical optics business. They could eradicate their massive (relative to the size of the business) sales, marketing, administration and service overhead of their camera business. Furthermore, the industry seems to have a very large amount of new mounts desperately short of native glass.
Now, of course, some of these new mounts are fairly proprietary but there is nothing to say that Olympus couldnt design and produce lenses for other brands (and already might do as far as I know.) All conjecture but I dont see an Olympus FF mount on the horizon.

To understand Olympus's position you have to go back and look in recent history.
1) In 2008 its digital imaging was profitable and had annual sales of US$3bn. In the following 10 years sales have shrunk 85% to US$550m and the imaging division has lost money in 9 out of the 10 years.
2) For the current year Olympus forecasts a loss of US$70m which equates to US$150 on every ILC it sells.
3) So realistically management cant go to shareholders and say - we started the 43 format, lost money and closed it down - we started the M43 format and lost money. But we have a great idea - lets get into FF and directly compete with Nikon, Sony and Canon.
So where does this leave them? Well they can stick with M43 and hope it comes good. But Panasonic seems to be looking elsewhere (whether that is a good idea is another question)? (I am not really sure that Olympus has much faith - they have released 3 cameras in the last 2 years.) So they could exit the business altogether. 
Alternatively, they could turn themselves into being purely a lens manufacturer (more along the lines of Zeiss (cough, cough)) for existing mounts. This is where their value added/expertise really lies(and has synergy with their highly successful medical optics business. They could eradicate their massive (relative to the size of the business) sales, marketing, administration and service overhead of their camera business. Furthermore, the industry seems to have a very large amount of new mounts desperately short of native glass.
Now, of course, some of these new mounts are fairly proprietary but there is nothing to say that Olympus couldnt design and produce lenses for other brands (and already might do as far as I know.) All conjecture but I dont see an Olympus FF mount on the horizon.

Purists have always been pretty animated about lens distortion. Obviously any lens distortion with a film camera would show up in the print. With a DSLR the distortion would be evident in the viewfinder but could be corrected. With a mirrorless you can correct the distortion in both the viewfinder (with lens profiles) and the image (in camera or in post.) 
Obviously software correction of optical distortion requires a small degree of stretching of the underlying pixels which equates to some loss of image quality but it is relatively minor. I feel it is actually an advantage of mirrorless that you can effectively use both software and optical solutions to correct distortion allowing cheaper and lighter lenses (the FE 28 2 is a good example). Pretty much any zoom like an M43 12-100 or FE 24-105 will tend to have quite a lot of distortion at the wide end.

After Effects is the obvious choice. The easiest way to go about this is to buy a stock After Effects project template, take it into After Effects and then customizing it to fit your own vision, logos and video.
Here is an example....
https://s3.envato.com/h264-video-previews/492678.mp4
...but there are literally thousands to choose from.
You would have to be pretty brave, skilled and have a lot of time to do it yourself in After Effects from scratch.

I have always found this guy very reliable when it comes to Mavic videos, so I think this one is worth a look....
Word of caution: He is flogging some neat video noise profiles and some D Log LUTs for the Mavic 2, so if you find that sort of thing irritating in youtube videos, it is best avoided...

I have always found this guy very reliable when it comes to Mavic videos, so I think this one is worth a look....
Word of caution: He is flogging some neat video noise profiles and some D Log LUTs for the Mavic 2, so if you find that sort of thing irritating in youtube videos, it is best avoided...

What struck me most about the presentation was how 'photography centric' it was. It was 95% about photography. The presentation was titled 'Lumix - changing photography'. There were 3 Lumix brand ambassadors - all of them photographers. When the slide with the two cameras came up - the high resolution camera didnt even mention video....

My guess is that their 'photographer brand ambassadors' made it clear to Panasonic that an M43 sized sensor simply doesnt cut it in the professional 'photography' market and that this is a market that they feel they need to be in (and I suspect the G9 hasnt sold well). So Panasonic are going FF mainly to try and capture the pro photography market. Comments about 'best possible codec' are entirely meaning less and cant be conflated into 'internal raw recording' - noone is going to say that they plan to have a 'crummy video codec.'

What struck me most about the presentation was how 'photography centric' it was. It was 95% about photography. The presentation was titled 'Lumix - changing photography'. There were 3 Lumix brand ambassadors - all of them photographers. When the slide with the two cameras came up - the high resolution camera didnt even mention video....

My guess is that their 'photographer brand ambassadors' made it clear to Panasonic that an M43 sized sensor simply doesnt cut it in the professional 'photography' market and that this is a market that they feel they need to be in (and I suspect the G9 hasnt sold well). So Panasonic are going FF mainly to try and capture the pro photography market. Comments about 'best possible codec' are entirely meaning less and cant be conflated into 'internal raw recording' - noone is going to say that they plan to have a 'crummy video codec.'

Actually, I've found all content of presentation in general more serious - as little bit shameless: actually showing anything but achiеvable possible plan. Even about future codec their words are shamelessly indeterminate: "codecs will be best possible for video work"... i. e. clearly with idea to wait and see what other manufacturers will do and than try to surpass their offer. Probably having better cooling know-how and codec-science knowledge in sleeves by which could beat concurrency, I think that Panasonic makes step further in a cheap (and not just a bit dirty) game of delaying, aka stealing time as more and more main business strategy...
What is ugly to me is that Panasonic indeed can - as it looks like - make, for example 24-105 lens with f4 , f2.8, maybe even spectacular f2 - but decision again depends solely of selling need - as they come out with m43 10-25 f1.7 lens only just at the moment when m43 system selling seems jeopardized... It has to be tolerated, but lesser from company that earlier had idea of "serving to community with best possible tools" as one of the main marketing motto... What a difference in comparison to proudly disclosure announce of GH5 with road map...
Of course, all such business background procrastinated estimations are logical and even expected, but know they are made so brutally obvious that looks to me very unattractive - even if there's no any doubt that Panasonic easily could make the best and most advance offering.  
 

The flash shoe is designed for Sigma flashes too.

This is what I am talking about. When I say this japanese industry does not innovate at all. 

Bigger screen, ssd, integrated lightroom and direct share. This should be in our mirrorless cameras for 2 years. 
No they will keep the same button layout and design and screen as 10y ago. 

This camera will be probably niche and expensive, but bravo Zeiss. 

The Lightroom aspect is intriguing because it's obviously a massive hint that its Android and that might mean some interesting 3rd party apps.
Very interested in following how this develops.