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4 hours ago, Dan Sherman said:

I would't say its bad, its just not what a lot of people want. I mean some of the tests people do are retarded, jumping completely in and out of frame, or moving towards or away from the  camera quickly. Then in real world use, they just sit in front of it vlog style yet still complain because their extreme tests didn't work.

I agree that some tests are far fetched and not useful.

What is useful is seeing how many out of focus shots there are in real videos that aren't about the camera's AF.

Kai Wong had regular occurrences of out of focus shots from his GH5 where he's obviously shot the video and only discovered the focus problem in editing when it's too late to re-shoot.

I've seen him sitting in the middle of the frame talking to camera and it just focuses from him to the background and just stays there for 5 seconds or more completely happy with itself. I think it got better after the update but still wasn't perfect, and this is potentially the easiest composition in the world to focus on.

It might be the technology of the future, but it's not the technology of the present unfortunately.

5 hours ago, BrooklynDan said:

It must be said that video amplifies the difference between formats far more than in stills.

Thanks, that makes sense. The video I linked differentiated MF from FF more than still images seemed to and that explains why.

5 hours ago, anonim said:

Yes, that combination  

But from experience I'd say - for subtle but crucial impact that touch quality of imposing "emotional" reaction, lens characteristics (power of discerning details, space plans and way of their rendering) are much more important than anything else (in approximately equal well lit circumstances). For unexpected result in famous Zacuto Shootout 2012 responsibility (besides skillful operator) lays in usage of Fujinon 18-85 Premium lens on GH2.

From some technical reasons that are far above my knowledge (quality of glasses etc), lens construction  (in case of superior quality lenses) overrides and tamed cameras differences, especially in today's so closely extremely capable cameras. Contrary, modestly constructed or too software dependent lenses simply exaggerate sensors/digital processing nature, codec and "color science" receipts. 

That makes perfect sense considering that the lens essentially converts 3D to 2D and the sensor only captures the result. Combine that with flares and other effects that vary depending on the location of things in the frame, which is how our eyes work, and it's a really critical component of getting depth to an image.

I haven't seen the Zacuto shoot-out, do you have a link?

2 hours ago, wolf33d said:

Once MF are at this standard of sensor size and mpx for $3000 which means in 5 years, I will happily switch. Right now the best of all words is FF for me. Real DR / mpx advantage over APSC and reasonable size (Sony A7,...). 

I agree. If you skip FF mirrorless for MF video then you'll be waiting a decent time period.

Although, having said that, is it easier to make an 8K sensor FF or larger? If there are advantages to a larger sensor then maybe MF might be how some manufacturers do it? Although releasing yet another set of lens mounts for 8K would be beyond ridiculous, so chances are that they've factored in 8K into their FF mirrorless lens mounts already.

Gear up people... Choose your 8K video manufacturer now when you buy FF mirrorless!!

I'd also like to know if Canon are working on a small ILC cine camera. Maybe a C100iii or an ILC XC model or something in between.

I'm not optimistic though as AFAIK Canon have had their announcements and the C100 (2012) and C100ii (2014) schedule seems to have stopped completely.

Sony A7Siii anything, that seems to be the last missing component in the next batch of cameras.

I'd also like to know if Sony are updating their 4K action camera, as I'm in the market.. 

Thanks Andrew!

I think we should discuss lenses and MF cameras separately.

In the same way that a MFT 25mm f2.8 lens gives the same viewing angle and DoF as a 50mm f5.6 lens, there are equivalent lenses on MF also.

My question is that given the two sensor sizes and two equivalent lenses (equivalent in both focal length and aperture) then are there any other differences?

The video I included looks absolutely gorgeous to me, but is that simply a combination of the lens resolution and characteristics, the colour science, the codec (IIRC that video was raw?), the source resolution, and the nice lighting and subject?

If so, then the engineering part of my brain understands that, and would also explain why lovely images can be also be taken with MFT, 1" cameras, or even smartphones and their borderline microscopic sensors.

I want to have a camera that is as small as possible, but if there's something magical about MF (which the images certainly hint that there might be) then I want to understand what it is and start working out how to get it!

3 minutes ago, ajay said:

Who cares if it's CDAF or PDAF as long as it works?

No-one. The problem is that sometimes it doesn't.

40 minutes ago, Mokara said:

It is just a computational problem. Once cameras have sufficient power and lenses are fast and reactive enough, CDAF will be better. Ultimately it is more accurate and does not require calibration.

CDAF can determine which way to go to find focus as well, is the processor is powerful enough to process the data. Going forward as processors become faster and more powerful they will be able to handle larger data sets and performance will improve, especially when you have lenses that are designed with this in mind. Panasonic are already leading the field in this regard.

Cameras of the future will not be using the technology of the past. Behavior you saw in old cameras is not where technology is heading. You need to look where things are going, not where they have been. Who cares what old cameras were capable of, what matters is what new cameras are capable of.

If what you're saying is true then that's a good thing, and I hope you're right.

My experience has been awful with older budget cameras, and the issues I've seen with the GH5 (or those that made the cut anyway) are admittedly less than 2005 point-and-shoot cameras, but unfortunately we're still too far off for it to be acceptable performance for me.

I've now filed it under the same category as 8K video - it will be good but it's not available yet and when it is available it will be costly and take time to trickle down into the camera body with the right feature set for my preferences.

What are the competitors likely to release and when?

I was hoping Sony would update their flagship action camera this year

When is the next Xiaomi Yi announcement likely to be?

8 hours ago, Robert Collins said:

This lens rather neatly shows why Panasonic is heading into FF. It is a big heavy, expensive fast zoom designed to appeal to those users that see the need to make up for the lack of light and DOF inherent in a smaller sensor. At some point you inevitably conclude that a larger sensor makes more sense.

I agree and have commented previously in other threads about this.

I'm not sure why but when you go smaller than APSC there are no fast zooms available, and APSC only has the one option.

4 hours ago, Mokara said:

Depends on the processing power and the responsiveness of lenses. There is no inherent reason why PDAF is better than CDAF, actually if you have enough processing power the reverse would be true since you are dealing with what actually appears on the image rather than a parallax difference. Consequently it is more accurate, provided you are gathering enough data.

CDAF works better with a narrow depth of field, so putting it in a FF camera is not a disadvantage. PDAF works better with deeper depth of field, since it is essentially a crude rangefinder independent of what is in the image. This is why you will find both types in most MILCs, PDAF is used to get a rough range so the lens focus point is in about the right place, and then CDAF is used to get it set accurately. If your lens is responsive and fast enough however, you don't really need PDAF as much.

You might be right about CDAF being best for fine-tuning the focus, but PDAF not only knows something is out of focus but which way the focus is to be found.

After watching dozens or hundreds of beautiful moments pass while the focus mechanism has charged off in the wrong direction and the moment concludes and the shot is lost while the camera is still wondering why the entire frame is a complete blur, I will always be deeply deeply skeptical of CDAF-only cameras.

Thanks everyone!

This is kind of a microcosm of my previous impressions about MF, most talk about it being scaled up but the same, a few talk about desirable aesthetic differences and then get refuted.

It's kind of why I asked the question. My brain says that the differences should be all engineering, but then I see images like the video in the first post and something within me stirs and says "I want that!!".

I guess we'll have to wait for the camera to come out and judge the footage for ourselves.

Now we've heard the Fujifilm GFX 100MP 4K Medium Format camera announcement, it leads me to wonder what the medium format look really is?

Obviously the sensor size means that shallow depth of field is easier to get, and larger sensors gather more light (although MF sensors don't seem to be low light beasts), but what else is part of the look?

This sure looks nice though...

@noone I agree that there are too many systems to survive. It's an interesting time, as it is an industry in disruption and also, depending on how you look at it and over what time scales, in consolidation.

In the long term I think we will have three form factors, large modular cinema cameras with mind boggling specs, smartphones with many lenses and AI driven computational image processing, and the middle offering that will be the successful synergy of video and stills.

As smartphones eat the bottom end of the market it's the middle offering that we're moist concerned about here, and we've got a number of iterations before this space settles down.

4 hours ago, BopBill said:

I am sure many would be intrested to know something about the audio quality recorded with camera's internal mics. I have understood it should be quite good for internal mics. Does it capture camera's fan noise, or how about the noice floor, is there much hiss in sound?

I haven't heard any sound recorded with this camera yet.

How directional it is would be useful to know too

16 minutes ago, Jimmy said:

An announcement of an announcement then.

I'll stick with my XH1 and XT2 while the dust settles on all this.

Yeah. Until the cameras get into the hands of reviewer's who can pick them apart, understand the various combinations of features that work well and those that are locked out, understand who there for, and then compare them, only then will I sink a solid four figures into a new system.

11 minutes ago, jonpais said:

The 70/30% photo/video part concerns me too. I imagined L Junior would be a GH5 on steroids - a mean video machine.

Will we ever see FF mirrorless with internal ND filters? Will other mfrs ever have sensible menu interfaces like BMD or Hasselblad? 

The more that I thought about this announcement and what I wanted the more that the line between mirrorless, cinema and ILC camcorders blurred in my brain.

If we're talking about the relationship between consumer and cinema cameras then why should the consumer ones not overlap on video features, and what is the best form factor anyway?

3 minutes ago, Anaconda_ said:

Or wait for 8.5K in 2021

Or wait for 8k IBIS in 2022

Or wait for 8k 120p in 2023

Or wait for 8k 120p IBIS in 2024

At some point, you just need to buy a camera and be happy with it ?

At some point you need to understand what features you actually use and then when the camera that has those is released then that's what to buy. For some people that was 10 years ago and for others it's not yet. 

The problem is that some don't start with their requirements, and that's how you get lost in the confusion of camera tech.

@A_Urquhart good info, thanks.

As this is a camera that is really likely to shine brightest with raw and careful grading, perhaps just sharing your impressions of it is easiest and quickest.

Or alternatively just take a bunch of random shots and upload some DNGs or TIFFs for others to dl and play with?

No PDAF though

3 hours ago, kaylee said:

thats the answer to your question: a very small room that is supposed to feel small and claustrophobic, but having a wider angle for an establishing shot wouldve been nice. mind you this is a real location – if there was no fourth wall it wouldnt be a problem ?

I get that sometimes. I also get it when you're trying to get something really big in frame too. Yesterday I was at some Greek ruins and checked the framing and had to walk back, three times(!) before it fit into the wide end of the XC10 24-240mm zoom.

I'd suggest that it's any time you're working in a location where you struggle for space is a potential wide angle lens situation.

5 hours ago, kaylee said:

one thing i learned making my short is that i wouldve like a MUCH wider angle than 24mm on full frame

i did NOT anticipate that lol

What kind of shots did you want the wide angle for?

I sometimes miss a wide angle, and I'm curious to know when others do too

2 minutes ago, BTM_Pix said:

You mean convertible as in the mount swap service Sigma currently offer or an adapter?

Novoflex do an EF to L mount adapter already but its quite expensice so I'm hoping the first thing that comes out of this relationship is Sigma releasing is an L version of their MC-11 adapter.

 

I'm hoping the mount swap service could do it.

One less set of contacts and electronics and all that is a good thing.  If so, it would basically mean that the new system would "launch" with the entire Sigma FF lens line up, and for many people they wouldn't have to re-buy anything to have native lenses.

It would kill the paltry lens catalogue from CaNikon!

8 hours ago, Lucas A said:

Australia huh? Favouritism! With Blackmagic and Rode, you fellows have two companies really challenging the Japanese and Americans for that quality/ cost co-efficient and in my view winning hands down. Both Rode and BlackMagic are offering quality products that rival the very best in the world, whilst costing 1/10 the price. Disruptive!

There's a well-known thing here called "the Australia tax" where the same products cost 20-80% more than the exact same products do elsewhere in the world.

It's due to many manufacturers having exclusive suppliers with dedicated regions, so you can only buy through one business and they control the price.

I am also interested in hifi and it's a common occurrence for someone to take their family on a week holiday to Singapore or Japan and buy a piece of hifi equipment and have it shipped directly back to Australia. Depending on how expensive the item is, the difference in price can be so large it covers the cost of the family holiday, a week of lost wages, the shipping of heavy and fragile goods, and the person still comes out ahead.

Does anyone know if the existing Sigma FF lens line up would be convertible to the new mount?

I don't understand the technical details of lens mounts..

1 hour ago, kaylee said:

UH OH~!

i forgot that the youtube app doesnt go above 1080p on a phone (right?), so ppl on mobile will not see the 4k version, theyll see the 1080p version that looks TERRIBLE

OH NOES!!! ?

I've had the frustration of discovering this as well. I thought about it and I don't think there's much that can be done.

I was going to do a follow-up test to see if a high quality 1080p upload would look better at 1080p than a 4K upload at 1080p, but was so frustrated with it I didn't bother.

Facebook video is worse, with the video starting by default at 240p or something. I discovered why too, the channels with huge subscriber counts get high bitrates at the start of the video! Hooray for capitalism!

3 hours ago, KnightsFan said:

The truth is, everyone should test their camera extensively and find out what exposure works best, regardless of what the numbers say.

Absolutely. I did this for my XC10 in C-Log and luckily there were no significant differences a stop either way of where it exposes skin tones in auto (how I shoot) so I just don't worry about it.

Unfortunately I sympathise with the OP wanting to know about cameras they don't already own.

Unfortunately this level of performance testing doesn't often overlap with non-cinema cameras so the comparison probably isn't on vimeo somewhere

+1 for adding grain and uploading in 4K.

Don't forget you can do an export of one or two shots, upload as a private video, watch and see how it looks, then adjust and do it again until you've worked out what looks best.