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Good summary and thanks for re-evaluating. People who are able to fact-check or re-evaluate their position, by keeping an open mind and updating their previous conclusions, are in my most respected category. My impressions of the 5D with ML setup is that it stands in the current market like many other cameras: as having significant weak points but also significant strengths. Rather than being an all-rounder like many other offerings, I feel it has a very strong image if that's the kind of look you're going for, but also strong negatives, like people have mentioned. This is in contrast to most other cameras from that time that have aged significantly and are mostly negatives compared with the current crop. This setup is definitely not for everyone, but neither is any other camera and it's up to each of us to match the strengths and weaknesses of each product against our own individual highest and lowest priorities.

I don't know about the Komodo-X, so maybe some of these considerations are different, but the sorts of things I was thinking about were: Long startup times Poor non-native ISO performance Lower resolution outputs crop into the sensor, so if you want to shoot in anything less than 871K then all of a sudden your whole lens collection has shifted FOVs, and your 6K RAW files are ridiculous if you're shooting for socials which are 1080p max and people are watching on their phones Higher frame rates are only available in lower resolutions, so a FPS change is now a lens change, which is a DOF change, and might be an exposure change, which combined with poor-non-native ISO performance is a lighting change...... These probably aren't a big deal for anyone who already use cinema cameras, but lots of these folks saving up for years to finally buy a RED came from the high-end cameras of the time like GH5, C70, 1DXii, etc, which are completely different beasts to use. So it's really a cinema-camera vs video-camera type of thing, and lots of people aren't shooting in controlled situations either so the struggle is real.

Man - I recently watched my BMMCC footage I shot with the 14mm handheld and it was too shaky so well done on hand-holding a 25mm lens! The images certainly grade like refined butter.... just incredible compared to any h26x footage.

Actually, @mercer has recently become acquainted with a camcorder that has rather captured his attention....

I think most of us are kind of hacks - it's like Richard Hammond once said while tearing around the test track in some hypercar "this car is so much faster than me!". I've come to realise that almost all of the magic in a final edit gets there by flowing from the people through the tools to the footage. This is why I don't feel creatively limited by my GX85. I'd say that for 50% (or 80% or 95%) of the people on the planet if they were shooting on a GX85 then the limitation on the creativity would still be on the operator and not on the camera.

I'm not really that surprised about people switching away from RED in seemingly odd situations because I think that RED holds this strange place for many as a "fantasy camera". There is a little bit of "one day I'll save up and buy an Alexa" on YT, and maybe a little bit for the higher end Sony cameras, but "one day I'll own a RED camera!!!" is a big theme on YT. Then they get the darn thing and realise: 1) pure cinema isn't magically channelled onto the media card, and 2) it's a PITA to use. I'm slightly susceptible to this "RED fever" myself - I'll think of the images coming off the Komodo and how stunning they were, and start thinking about how maybe I could use it, and then I remember that literally almost everything about it is completely wrong for me..... but part of me still wants one! Hi Dave! I'm assuming that most creators cover the costs of the trip via the sponsorships from the usual suspects like Audiio and Squarespace and BetterHelp etc, and also assuming that you have a general idea about what other people get paid for such things.. is it true that this covers the trip costs? if so, is it better for them to attend a trip and make 1 or 2 or more videos about the camera than it would have been to stay home and make different videos about other things that didn't involve a trip? if not, do they take a financial loss and view it as a partly-subsidised holiday? I'm guessing that there's more interest (and therefore more views and higher sponsorship payments) for videos around a new camera rather than the old "My 5 favourite vintage lenses" or "7 tips for shooting with a wide angle" videos which don't depend on access to new equipment. I'm also aware of the YT formula of making searchable tech videos to get reach and attract new subscribers, and making regular content with more personality that caters to existing subscribers and builds your personal brand, so even if someone takes a loss on the videos from the trip it might pay out in getting more subs, growing the channel, and therefore increasing the viewership and sponsorship fees for all future videos.

One thing I think is useful to keep in mind is that anything published to YT is a part of the entertainment industry. That's why everything is about views & subscribers (the ratings system for free online content) and ad breaks and sponsored videos etc. The business model is the same - the owner pays to make content that will attract viewers and then sells that attention to advertisers. YT didn't call them 'channels' and have a TV as its icon by accident - everyone is running a TV station now. Some are trying to be community stations, attracting patrons of the arts rather than selling out, etc, but the game is the same. If camera reviews were part of science then there would be peer-review and the general goal would be to be well-respected and get funding through that mechanism. Sure, there are lots of corruptions to science with research funding politics and publishing etc but it's still a long way from being in the territory that the entertainment industry is. Only you can decide if a TV show / YT video is an informercial, a talk show, a documentary, or a public broadcast, but you should be making that decision when you watch.

I'm not really sure what criticisms you're making. When I watch a Gerald video, the things I'm seeing are things like: What is the DR that he measured What features aren't available in which modes (ie, what the manufacturer won't tell you) What else did he notice about it, like if it overheated, or took 20s to turn on, or got corrupted clips, etc He's mentioned before that he has a standard checklist of things to test and does that for all his reviews, so assuming that's true then it's a semi-rounded take on the camera Maybe I'm missing all the times when he made comments that were outside his knowledge and experience? If he did then I don't remember him making them. The territory that gets tricky is when a reviewer is commenting on how good a camera it is overall (because that's subjective and not objective), or when things are outside their experience. I can read whatever I want about an Alexa 35 but I'd be talking out my backside if I told you that it was a good camera for a cinematographer to shoot a feature film on, because I have no experience of that. Perhaps the biggest criticism of that Gerald that I am aware of is omission of relevant facts. Is there some gotcha about the camera that wasn't in one of his reviews? Probably in every one of them. Are they deliberately withheld, and if so then why? or did he just not find them? Who knows, but it's worth noting that Gerald takes the most time to menu dive out of all the YT reviewers, and is obviously much more systematic in his approach, so whatever extent he's guilty of it then everyone else is guilty of it 10X or 50X more. Most YT 'reviewers' seem to just read out the marketing brochure, turn the camera on and wave it around enough to film a video long enough for a sponsor segment, and if they find a weakness then might mention it and might not... then proceed to tell you that it's a good fit for doing a bunch of things that they have no experience with at all. We can throw shade at Gerald, and no-one is perfect of course, but if we're going to get specific then perhaps we should refocus our attention to the worst offenders. Lots of reviewers making only positive reviews about a brand and then a "why I'm switching to X" video which mentions a dozen or so criticisms of their previous brand that somehow never made it into the original videos but would have been obvious from day one. Of course, if we're going to re-direct our attention, then maybe we should focus on those who actively oppose any genuine criticism of a brand, like the R5 incident which was easily verifiable by anyone who had one or had access to someone who did... Not being a critical reviewer is one thing, but voluntarily participating in a cover up is something else entirely.

Very interesting... The 12-35mm F2.8 and 14-140mm F3.5-5.6 are basically the same size, and when combined with the GX85 are about 120mm deep, so 140.1 mm deep is perfectly acceptable for a body + 7X zoom lens setup. An 18-40mm lens would be a very useful one as well, especially if it's shorter. I'm a big fan of having an ultra-wide, and although I've got 16mm and 15mm equivalent primes for my MFT cameras, 18mm is likely just wide enough for almost everything I have come across. Having some smaller lenses still, other than the prime just released would be the final piece of that puzzle I'd say. Maybe the lenses to back up such a small camera body will actually arrive with it. Very encouraging.

I think this is a key point - colour grading is a daunting and time-consuming thing that most won't want to do (or learn to do). I disagree that this isn't for content creators, I think that's exactly who it's for, but the point stands. I got into video around 2016 and at the time the people here were all about LUTs and profiles, CineD in Panasonic cameras, the Leeming LUT etc. At that time I didn't see anyone talking about colour management, and although Resolve was the same price then as it is now, it was a very different tool back then. It had only recently had the Edit page added, and round-tripping from PP/FCPX to Resolve and back isn't for the faint-of-heart. There are still lots of people who don't want to colour grade, for a variety of reasons, but now it's not a choice between a few profiles or a few LUTs, or spending the time and effort to learn colour grading.

Of course... duh! *slaps own forehead* 🙂 Interesting about the cage manufacturers doing the leaking. I guess they'd be the ones with the most detailed knowledge of the cameras too - considering that they'd be required to receive accurate dimensions and potentially would also get the size requirements of the lenses too so they'd be able to figure out the lens configuration and sensor size. I think it's a straight up content creators camera. Gerald said he thinks that it was Panasonic trying to get some of that Fuji money after the success of the X100 selling out, and that the inclusion of all the more advanced features was simply a case of taking the S5ii package and not paying engineers to disable features when they can just release the new camera with those features and not pay anyone to remove them. Millennials and GenZ are running around with vintage point-and-shoot cameras and want film presets now, despite their smartphone being technically better in practically every way. The fact that us crotchety old camera nerds don't know what the hell they want isn't surprising, especially considering I'm pretty sure they don't know what they want either! Anyone who has ever looked at the fashion industry will know that nothing makes sense, lots of things look completely stupid, yet there is a rabid market for it and you can make squillions of dollars if you can get it right.

Yeah, exactly like the G9. Making the S9 into a GX line camera would literally be the same - taking a FF body and putting an MFT sensor / mount into it. If they did this, it would make sense. Have a few standard body shapes where you can get economies of scale for manufacture, and just change the sensor and lens mounts etc for different models. BM has been doing this with the BMPCC lineup. I'd be inclined to say that this is what they're doing, but who knows... anything designed by committee is inherently unpredictable unless you're in the room with the committee, and even then, lots of corporate folks get chewed up and spat out by office politics even when they are in the room! In terms of the potential overheating, Gerald said something in the livestream to the effect that Panasonic test their cameras at 40C / 104F and that these record time limits would be a guarantee that the camera would record for that long under those conditions. It was just a reference in passing of course, so don't quote me on that. I also heard a comment in one of the reviews (Cams IIRC) where someone said that someone tested the camera by just hitting record over and over again, and it being fine recording for something like an hour, and there was talk with Panasonic about removing the time limits via firmware, but obviously who knows what will happen. I suspect a bunch of people will be happy. Dave said in the steam that he mentioned the controversy about the release to one of the creators who was there and they didn't know what he was talking about because his audience, who are all iPhone / vlogging folks, didn't have any negative comments about it at all. When I was shooting with primes, the 2X function on the GH5 and GX85 were really important to me. They literally changed the lenses that I bought and my approach to how I shot. For most people this feature was of zero importance. Why do I say this? For most people who buy these cameras, this whole conversation and controversy is the equivalent of me talking about the 2X feature - they don't know about this stuff, wouldn't understand it if they came across it, and if we explained it to them they simply wouldn't care.

Sure, but if I brand bananas as bananas, it doesn't make them less of a banana. I'm talking about structure. He's a technician who tests cameras. If a technician tells me the DR is 12.7 stops then I'd be inclined to believe them, but if they tell me its a good camera for shooting sunsets in Belize then I would raise an eyebrow.

So, I've been watching that podcast and got to the part where Dave implies incredibly strongly that the S9 wasn't the camera that was planned to be announced. It's at the 1h30m mark of the video, but he's saying it as strongly as he can without breaking an NDA or outing a source (or both). My theory is that almost a week ago BM dropped the price of the BMCC 6K by 40% to $1575, and then seemingly Panasonic swaps the camera released during a press event where they had invited a bunch of film-makers to... Was Panasonic releasing a high-end video camera and didn't want to compete with the BMCC 6K at the same price point? Did BM get wind what Panasonic was releasing and drop their price to screw up their launch? I've seen documentaries about corporate espionage and that shit is real - companies spy on each other as much as you'd expect when there are millions of dollars at stake.

Here's a 2 hour podcast talking about it with Brandon Washington, Gerald, and Dave Altizer (who went on the S9 Japan trip). Chapters to give you a sense of the subjects covered: 5:20 Show Begins 17:30 Gerald Undone's Interview - Launch of S9 is Interesting 22:45How Does Gerald Stay Unbiased w Brands 29:54 How Gerald Decides What NOT to Review 32:50 Gerald's Thoughts on the S9 Launch 47:26 The Reason Behind Gerald's Studio Tours 56:13 Should You Receive Monetary Value for Reviews 1:04:22 Should You Review Gear if You're Not Using it on Set? 1:13:45 David Altizer's Interview - Perspective From Japan Trip 1:24:55 Does the Cost of the Product Influence Reviews? 1:30:38 The S9 Was Not the Camera That Was Planned 1:39:24 Michael Tobin on the Blackmagic 6K Now Also $1500

Actually, I think he's one of the most authentic YT reviewers in that way - he isn't a film-maker and doesn't pretend to be one. His reviews are technical and he doesn't pretend to know which little technical gotcha will be important to you and what won't be. This makes sense to me because film-making is different for everyone and tiny little things can be deal-breakers for a few but meaningless to most. The other authentic YT reviewers are the cinematographers. They are working pros who can speak to what is important, but also have a YT channel. This is important to me because cinematographers can have a tendency to know almost nothing about post-production, and/or their knowledge is based on having a workflow that has 27 people in it who all do this for a living. So when a cinematographer is also on YT it generally means they have experience with doing the whole thing themselves, so are able to speak to the whole end-to-end workflow and any quirks about things, which is what matters to lots of us. To complete the picture, the worst YT reviewers are the professional YouTubers. They pretend to be film-makers but only know about YT. They are mostly self-taught and not technical, so they think they're experts, but they're just pretending. If we took the fundamentals of image creation and tested them on it, most would fail, and some would get zero. Take the Resolution Demo from Yedlin - anyone who has actually watched it would either immediately stop hyping up anything 3K or above, or doesn't care about the fact that the image will, in the end, be put in front of an audience. They simply review cameras in terms of how good they are at filming yourself making camera reviews, nothing more, because they don't know anything else. A special mention goes to Chris and Jordan from DPReview fame, who actually made a short film each year with all the processes and techniques of the industry, and yet consistently made statements in reviews that showed they had zero understanding of the fundamentals. I'm wondering if this will spark a bit of a checkpoint in the community. First was the announcements about Insta360 asking people to hide sponsorships, and now this from Gerald, on the back of a highly visible PR event. Everyone says how much influence these "influencers" have, I guess we'll see. One thing I thought was fascinating was his idea of the three phases, and the idea that a reviewer can get big enough to start getting the invitations without having special access, so in theory they don't need it to keep growing. I suspect this video will make the rounds quietly within the YT community, and a lot of people will go "oh yeah... that makes sense". It's the kind of thing that once you've heard it you won't forget it. People will do what they want with that info of course, but I think it might cause a subtle shift.

After a little while reading comments and watching videos and reading the specs, I have come to think of this camera a little differently than it seems others are. I think it's about size. If you want a better camera and don't care about size then just buy an S5iiX, or a BMCC 6K, or Alexa or whatever. Camerasize.com doesn't have the S9 yet, so I did a mockup myself, basically it's the same size as the GX85: In those terms, it's a GX85 sized camera body but FF, PDAF, Dual native ISO, 10-bit LOG, Open Gate, claimed 14+ stops of DR, cutting edge colour profiles, etc, without losing the IBIS etc. If it was an MFT camera then people would be falling all over themselves about it, but it's FF and so somehow has to be an Alexa LF to not get roasted.. doesn't make sense to me. Of course, it's not perfect because nothing is, but at this size and price the competition really isn't perfect either. Also, the F8 prime doesn't really bother me that much, and it's a much closer comparison to the 14mm F2.5 lens than you might think. The 14mm F2.5 has the DOF of a 28mm F5 lens, which is only just over a stop deeper, and if you combine the dual ISO of the S9 with the F8 lens then that gives it a 2.5 stop boost giving equivalent light gathering of a F3.5 lens (if I did the math right?). The iPhone 15 main camera has a crop factor of 5, so the main lens is equivalent to a 26mm F7.2 lens, and older models had smaller sensors so would be equivalent to slower lenses. Entire media empires have been built on content shot on phones, so I don't see this as a major issue. Then again, I bought the Olympus 15mm F8 body cap lens for MFT, so what would I know! My review of that lens is that it's great, but F8 is too slow for anything indoors or after sunset. With the Dual ISO that limitation disappears. The challenge for FF was lens size (and especially the L-mount), so here's a lens that's small and pocketable and great for street photography. Is it overpriced? Should it be AF? Probably.. but it exists, and "F8 and be there" is a saying that came from the best photographers who ever lived and has stood the test of time. All that said, I'm not buying one because the lenses are all still enormous except the new pancake. Hopefully this is a new body that Panasonic can re-use for the MFT line 🙂

Is there an archive of the video somewhere? Not sure where, but maybe it exists...

I'm not really following the project, but this got posted to a FB group I'm in and the footage looks pretty good... nothing incredible, because it's a standard sensor of course, but really workable: From the video description: STARVIS 2 sensor (IMX585) from Sony shot in a variety of frames rates ( 24, 30, 48, 60 ) in both 12-bit lossless compressed and 16-bit uncompressed CinemaDNG RAW at 4K resolution directly to CFExpress Type B media shot handheld with an image-stabilized Canon 17-55mm lens and a Metabones speedbooster Edited and color graded in DaVinci Resolve 19 Beta (4K timeline, exported in 8K)

Gerald just put out an incredible video talking about YT camera reviews, reviewers, manufacturers, and how the whole thing works. He talked about brands specifically and how they have treated him, including Panasonic punishing him for a YT title, Canon, Fuji, Sony, etc. The good, the bad, and absolutely the ugly. He also gave a pretty comprehensive and level-headed-sounding overview of how it works. If all you want to do is complain about everything (which is most people online sadly) then you can skip the nuanced parts of his video and just get to the gossip about each brand (that's what it is after all...) but the whole thing seems well thought-out.

Yeah, unfortunately it's the collective "we" and those of us who think there might be an optimum resolution and sharpness are hopelessly outnumbered by the MOAR! MOAR!! MOARRR!!!! people who are completely divorced from reality and can never get enough.

SHHHHH... I think Cam is listening....

Actually.....

Optics are different than the specs. One thing that isn't widely discussed is the optical formulas of lenses and what impacts they have on size and image quality. In general, the higher the optical performance the higher the quality..... For example, here's the Zeiss Otus 1.4/55 vs. Zeiss Planar 1.4/50mm The more everyone online keeps talking about megapixels and sharpness the larger all our lenses get. It's pretty simple really - we're getting what we asked for.

Or maybe they want to place another order with the factory but there is too much stock out there to make it an easy decision, so it could be part inventory management, part PR, and part market testing. I'm just guessing of course, but I have noticed that retail tends to prioritise moving units over profit. I've heard people before say that they'd prefer to be moving units even if it was without any profit margin at all rather than make profit but have very low throughput. I don't pretend to understand why..