kye

New firmware update just announced: https://www.panasonic.com/global/consumer/lumix/firmware_update.html
 

"Texas Instruments" sound like a big band from Fort Worth. 😀

Those are all absolutely KILLER deals...  well done!!

Something that people tend to forget is that products will have a performance tolerance range (nothing is perfect) so if you tested say 100 nominally identical cameras there would be performance and 'calibration' differences between them. I suspect that at the low-price end of things, per-unit testing doesn't go much beyond functional tests with a few basic performance tests and adjustments, with more detailed performance testing only done on a random sample basis (to check/ensure ongoing production quality). As chip datasheets often say about some spec parameters - 'performance guaranteed by design' i.e. we don't production test this performance parameter, or 'not 100% tested' i.e. we only do random sample testing of this. The 'analog' performance of image sensors, in terms of things like noise levels will vary - so you might be lucky and get a camera with a better than average sensor or unlucky and get a worse one - but most will be close to average.
Consumer/Prosumer cameras are not intended to be calibrated scientific instruments (and supplied with 'traceable' calibration certificates as a consequence), so it doesn't surprise me that the same nominal exposure settings can produce different results on different cameras (especially between brands). Lenses can also have noticeable performance differences between samples of the same lens (de-centering is a common problem) - Lensrentals have highlighted this in some of the articles on their website.

Tony Northrup did a video, probably over a decade ago now, comparing ISO between cameras and found that in the same exact situation different cameras give different exposures at the same ISO, up to almost a stop.  IIRC his test was meticulous using the same lens etc and he was shooting RAW, so there was no in-camera processing etc.
His conclusion?
It doesn't matter...  because of all the reasons people have posted above.

Without watching the videos and just looking at the screenshots, it looks like the ZV-E1 was exposed about 2/3 stop brighter than the FX30.  Assuming that it's 10-bit footage with a decent codec, you will drag a single slider slightly to the right in post and the images will look much more similar.
It is likely that the ZV-E1 has slightly more DR than the FX30 (full frame vs aps-c of a similar generation).  In the relatively low-contrast scene that's shown, if the exposure is within a stop or so of (what I think of as) correct, you would never know or care.

I agree with the comments from Kye and bjohn.
I think you're getting a bit obsessive about small differences in DR, which in real world usage are unlikely to be significant (or that you'd notice after editing the footage).
The two cameras are a bit chalk vs cheese anyway - one is hybrid-targeted, with a higher res sensor, mechanical shutter, a viewfinder, and more control wheels. The other is much more a dedicated video camera with (in theory) better on-board audio, fewer control dials, no viewfinder etc.
When you are using a camera, I think things like how comfortable is to hold, how easy it is to operate the controls, how good the stabilisation is, can you customise the operation of the buttons and dials to suit your way of doing things etc., are far more important than small differences in performance. As an example, I held an A6700 in my hands a few days ago, and found it quite awkward to reach the 'record' button without moving my right hand from (for me) it's natural position on the grip. On my G9 and OM-1 I have the record function programmed to one of the front custom buttons (between the grip and the lens mount), which are under my fingertips when I've got my right hand around the grip.
If you're at the stage where you are seriously considering buying the A6700, FX30 or ZV-E1, either try and get to a store where you can hold them in your hands, or make sure you buy from a place where you can return it without a problem - you might really like it when it arrives, or the opposite....

As an electronics design engineer who has spent a large a proportion of my career designing video processing and transmission equipment, I find it almost unbelievable how bad the video image processing can be in some hybrid cameras sometimes. For example, look at the amount of false colour and aliasing there is in the FHD from the Sony A6600 versus the (four year older) Pana GX8 in the image below (grabbed from this DPReview video test chart )

Sony has much improved the false colour situation in the recent A6700, but aliasing is still an issue (full test chart ) :

I well understand the issues of heat and power consumption in small battery powered devices, but e.g. Fuji and Panasonic can do it much better than Sony in comparable size cameras...

The pro cameras are pro because they have xls, nd, double recording, sci out, etc.
It's like saying "I really like my Toyota hatchback. it bests all of my so called super-cars and hyper-cars. if you don't care about acceleration, top speed, braking, cornering, cool factor, etc."
🙂 

Also, and I cannot emphasise this enough....
The image SOOC is like looking at the negative film SOOC.  It's not fit for direct display, it's not meant to be for direct display, and no-one really cares the differences in the SOOC image unless it appears in the final image.
Think of the post-production process as "developing" the image captured by the camera.

Most camera comparisons are pretty worthless because you're almost never compare two cameras in the real-world, and even if you are:
They'll be from different angles, so will have different content They'll be colour graded, and matching cameras that shoot LOG is pretty easy Things like DR don't matter unless the scene has huge amounts of it, but this is rare these days Videos get compressed to within an inch of their lives by the streaming services, so anything subtle will get crunched You don't need to get that close in colour in order for people to not notice different camera angles not matching perfectly Even if camera angles don't match, it only bothers people if your film is completely crap A much more significant impact on your final film will be the features of the camera, as they make a different on set in terms of efficiency of shooting and your ability to spend any time savings on lighting, directing, etc etc Trying to improve your film by concentrating on the minute differences in cameras is like trying to improve your paintings by concentrating on minute differences in your paint brushes.

We all know that cameras produce (sometimes dramatically) different images and image quality, and yet we also know that within a given price range those same cameras typically use the same sensors from Sony and are recording to the same codecs in basically the same bitrates.  It's maddening!
So, WTF is going on?  
Well, I just came upon this talk below, which goes through and demonstrates some of the inner workings in greater detail than I had previously seen:
It's long, but here's my notes...
Firstly, how you de-mosaic / de-bayer the image really matters, with some algorithms being higher quality and require higher processing power:
(Click on the images to zoom in - quality isn't the best but the effects are visible)


If you're not shooting RAW then this will be done in-camera, and if your manufacturer skimped on the processor they put in there, this will be happening to your footage.
If the camera is scaling the image, then the quality of this matters too:

and if the scaling even gets done in the wrong colour space then it can really screw things up:

There's more discussions in there, especially around colour science which has been discussed to death, but I thought these might be illuminating as it's not something we get to see that much because it's buried in the camera and typically it's not something we can easily play with in the NLE.
All these add up to a fundamental principle that I have been gradually gravitating towards.
If you're shooting non-RAW then shoot in the highest resolution you can shoot in, and just un-sharpen (blur) the image in post.
Shooting in the highest resolution means that your camera will be doing the least downscaling (or none), and most glitches and bad processing will be at the pixel-level, which means that the higher the resolution the smaller those glitches and errors compared to the size of the image, and un-sharpening de-emphasises these in the footage.  
You might notice that all of these shortcomings make the footage sharper, not duller, so the errors have made your footage sharp but in a way that it never was - it's fictional sharpness.
Also, the more modern displays are also themselves becoming sharper, so it's no wonder that footage all now looks like those glitch websites from the late 90s that were trying to be cool but looked like a graphic designer threw up into them...

FilmLight (who make BaseLight which is the Resolve competitor that costs as much as a house) seem to be on a mission to get deeper into the image and bring along the industry on that journey, and I'm really appreciative of their efforts as they're providing more insight into things we can do to get better images and get more value from our limited budgets.

Most camera comparisons are pretty worthless because you're almost never compare two cameras in the real-world, and even if you are:
They'll be from different angles, so will have different content They'll be colour graded, and matching cameras that shoot LOG is pretty easy Things like DR don't matter unless the scene has huge amounts of it, but this is rare these days Videos get compressed to within an inch of their lives by the streaming services, so anything subtle will get crunched You don't need to get that close in colour in order for people to not notice different camera angles not matching perfectly Even if camera angles don't match, it only bothers people if your film is completely crap A much more significant impact on your final film will be the features of the camera, as they make a different on set in terms of efficiency of shooting and your ability to spend any time savings on lighting, directing, etc etc Trying to improve your film by concentrating on the minute differences in cameras is like trying to improve your paintings by concentrating on minute differences in your paint brushes.

Those are all absolutely KILLER deals...  well done!!

Actually, that 12-36mm lens I mentioned earlier seems like it might fit the bill, if you are willing to make some modifications. I posted a question about it on another message board and a member named Boris Simović actually had one. He shared these photos (attached), taken with his E-M1 Mark II. To get the lens to work with his MFT body, he removed the rear plate and just screwed on an MFT adapter in its place. It won't focus to infinity at the longer focal lengths yet, but he's going to see if he can work with the adapter a little more to make it work.
He says it's somewhat heavy and feels like it needs more lubricant, but I think that the images look very promising.
It's available as the FOCtek C-M1236IR in the US for around $300, or $160 on AliExpress (without coupons applied). I am seriously struggling to keep myself from picking up a copy. But maybe you would be interested?

We all know that cameras produce (sometimes dramatically) different images and image quality, and yet we also know that within a given price range those same cameras typically use the same sensors from Sony and are recording to the same codecs in basically the same bitrates.  It's maddening!
So, WTF is going on?  
Well, I just came upon this talk below, which goes through and demonstrates some of the inner workings in greater detail than I had previously seen:
It's long, but here's my notes...
Firstly, how you de-mosaic / de-bayer the image really matters, with some algorithms being higher quality and require higher processing power:
(Click on the images to zoom in - quality isn't the best but the effects are visible)


If you're not shooting RAW then this will be done in-camera, and if your manufacturer skimped on the processor they put in there, this will be happening to your footage.
If the camera is scaling the image, then the quality of this matters too:

and if the scaling even gets done in the wrong colour space then it can really screw things up:

There's more discussions in there, especially around colour science which has been discussed to death, but I thought these might be illuminating as it's not something we get to see that much because it's buried in the camera and typically it's not something we can easily play with in the NLE.
All these add up to a fundamental principle that I have been gradually gravitating towards.
If you're shooting non-RAW then shoot in the highest resolution you can shoot in, and just un-sharpen (blur) the image in post.
Shooting in the highest resolution means that your camera will be doing the least downscaling (or none), and most glitches and bad processing will be at the pixel-level, which means that the higher the resolution the smaller those glitches and errors compared to the size of the image, and un-sharpening de-emphasises these in the footage.  
You might notice that all of these shortcomings make the footage sharper, not duller, so the errors have made your footage sharp but in a way that it never was - it's fictional sharpness.
Also, the more modern displays are also themselves becoming sharper, so it's no wonder that footage all now looks like those glitch websites from the late 90s that were trying to be cool but looked like a graphic designer threw up into them...

FilmLight (who make BaseLight which is the Resolve competitor that costs as much as a house) seem to be on a mission to get deeper into the image and bring along the industry on that journey, and I'm really appreciative of their efforts as they're providing more insight into things we can do to get better images and get more value from our limited budgets.

I'd try a range of things, and I'm sure others will have more to add, but I would:
Check the camera physically to make sure the screen works, buttons, EVF, etc I'd update the firmware straight away to the latest Put on several lenses and test that they're recognised correctly and the AF and OIS are working After putting in a new battery and formatting a memory card in it, I'd pick the best quality normal mode (24/25/30p) and do a long recording on it of something that has a lot of movement in it (a great test is putting three still images on a timeline each at 1 frame and then loop the video)..  if it records without issue for 20+ minutes without anything odd happening that's good, but if you have time I'd test until the card fills up or the battery dies I'd also do the same but on the highest frame rate mode Check the files are playable in the camera and work on the computer If it passes all of the above then it's unlikely that it has some lingering issue that isn't also present on new copies as well.

About half my cameras were second hand, with a couple of them likely having a lot more than two previous owners, but haven't had any issues with mine.
If you're concerned about overheating, get a camera with a fan.  A fan is the difference between a camera overheating in air-conditioning in under 45 minutes vs a camera recording for 24 hours in a race car at 120F / 48C.

We all know that cameras produce (sometimes dramatically) different images and image quality, and yet we also know that within a given price range those same cameras typically use the same sensors from Sony and are recording to the same codecs in basically the same bitrates.  It's maddening!
So, WTF is going on?  
Well, I just came upon this talk below, which goes through and demonstrates some of the inner workings in greater detail than I had previously seen:
It's long, but here's my notes...
Firstly, how you de-mosaic / de-bayer the image really matters, with some algorithms being higher quality and require higher processing power:
(Click on the images to zoom in - quality isn't the best but the effects are visible)


If you're not shooting RAW then this will be done in-camera, and if your manufacturer skimped on the processor they put in there, this will be happening to your footage.
If the camera is scaling the image, then the quality of this matters too:

and if the scaling even gets done in the wrong colour space then it can really screw things up:

There's more discussions in there, especially around colour science which has been discussed to death, but I thought these might be illuminating as it's not something we get to see that much because it's buried in the camera and typically it's not something we can easily play with in the NLE.
All these add up to a fundamental principle that I have been gradually gravitating towards.
If you're shooting non-RAW then shoot in the highest resolution you can shoot in, and just un-sharpen (blur) the image in post.
Shooting in the highest resolution means that your camera will be doing the least downscaling (or none), and most glitches and bad processing will be at the pixel-level, which means that the higher the resolution the smaller those glitches and errors compared to the size of the image, and un-sharpening de-emphasises these in the footage.  
You might notice that all of these shortcomings make the footage sharper, not duller, so the errors have made your footage sharp but in a way that it never was - it's fictional sharpness.
Also, the more modern displays are also themselves becoming sharper, so it's no wonder that footage all now looks like those glitch websites from the late 90s that were trying to be cool but looked like a graphic designer threw up into them...

FilmLight (who make BaseLight which is the Resolve competitor that costs as much as a house) seem to be on a mission to get deeper into the image and bring along the industry on that journey, and I'm really appreciative of their efforts as they're providing more insight into things we can do to get better images and get more value from our limited budgets.

Hehe, I found it. Well done. Congratulations to you, the director, cast and team! @Emanuel
 

Another vote for "buy used from a reputable dealer with a return policy" when possible - both with camera bodies and lenses.  They usually have a 30-day return policy as well - so that gives you some time to test the camera.

Personally, for the most part, I don't buy extended warranties and if you're going to buy one from a third party, try to do some investigation to understand whether people are happy with it when they try to use it.  I do carry extra camera insurance, though, for a bunch of my stuff.

On the rare occasion that there is a problem with the camera, you can send it back to the manufacturer for repair, even if it's out of warranty.  It'll just cost you a bit to have it repaired.  For me, over the last 25 years or so, I've definitely spent less on repairing cameras than I would have spent on extended warranties for all of them.  YMMV

Hopefully it's just the battery. These little gems getting quiet expensive these days. Great shots, makes me want to try the Pentax, great testimony to a lens! @mercer Was mistaking them as Canon 5D3 Raw shots. But you made that Sigma FP sing. There aren't any small mechanical 2x or 3x zooms for 16 or S16 unfortunately. @QuickHitRecord Maybe there might be some in 2/3" cctv land, but it would seem kind of silly to put that on a og pocket or m2k losing too much pixel realestate. On the Eos M that crop would mean 2/5 of the sensor and x axis pixels and be in the 2k ballpark. A 2/3" crop might sound appealing for the Eos with a tiny 2/3" zoom.:)

We all know that cameras produce (sometimes dramatically) different images and image quality, and yet we also know that within a given price range those same cameras typically use the same sensors from Sony and are recording to the same codecs in basically the same bitrates.  It's maddening!
So, WTF is going on?  
Well, I just came upon this talk below, which goes through and demonstrates some of the inner workings in greater detail than I had previously seen:
It's long, but here's my notes...
Firstly, how you de-mosaic / de-bayer the image really matters, with some algorithms being higher quality and require higher processing power:
(Click on the images to zoom in - quality isn't the best but the effects are visible)


If you're not shooting RAW then this will be done in-camera, and if your manufacturer skimped on the processor they put in there, this will be happening to your footage.
If the camera is scaling the image, then the quality of this matters too:

and if the scaling even gets done in the wrong colour space then it can really screw things up:

There's more discussions in there, especially around colour science which has been discussed to death, but I thought these might be illuminating as it's not something we get to see that much because it's buried in the camera and typically it's not something we can easily play with in the NLE.
All these add up to a fundamental principle that I have been gradually gravitating towards.
If you're shooting non-RAW then shoot in the highest resolution you can shoot in, and just un-sharpen (blur) the image in post.
Shooting in the highest resolution means that your camera will be doing the least downscaling (or none), and most glitches and bad processing will be at the pixel-level, which means that the higher the resolution the smaller those glitches and errors compared to the size of the image, and un-sharpening de-emphasises these in the footage.  
You might notice that all of these shortcomings make the footage sharper, not duller, so the errors have made your footage sharp but in a way that it never was - it's fictional sharpness.
Also, the more modern displays are also themselves becoming sharper, so it's no wonder that footage all now looks like those glitch websites from the late 90s that were trying to be cool but looked like a graphic designer threw up into them...

FilmLight (who make BaseLight which is the Resolve competitor that costs as much as a house) seem to be on a mission to get deeper into the image and bring along the industry on that journey, and I'm really appreciative of their efforts as they're providing more insight into things we can do to get better images and get more value from our limited budgets.

We all know that cameras produce (sometimes dramatically) different images and image quality, and yet we also know that within a given price range those same cameras typically use the same sensors from Sony and are recording to the same codecs in basically the same bitrates.  It's maddening!
So, WTF is going on?  
Well, I just came upon this talk below, which goes through and demonstrates some of the inner workings in greater detail than I had previously seen:
It's long, but here's my notes...
Firstly, how you de-mosaic / de-bayer the image really matters, with some algorithms being higher quality and require higher processing power:
(Click on the images to zoom in - quality isn't the best but the effects are visible)


If you're not shooting RAW then this will be done in-camera, and if your manufacturer skimped on the processor they put in there, this will be happening to your footage.
If the camera is scaling the image, then the quality of this matters too:

and if the scaling even gets done in the wrong colour space then it can really screw things up:

There's more discussions in there, especially around colour science which has been discussed to death, but I thought these might be illuminating as it's not something we get to see that much because it's buried in the camera and typically it's not something we can easily play with in the NLE.
All these add up to a fundamental principle that I have been gradually gravitating towards.
If you're shooting non-RAW then shoot in the highest resolution you can shoot in, and just un-sharpen (blur) the image in post.
Shooting in the highest resolution means that your camera will be doing the least downscaling (or none), and most glitches and bad processing will be at the pixel-level, which means that the higher the resolution the smaller those glitches and errors compared to the size of the image, and un-sharpening de-emphasises these in the footage.  
You might notice that all of these shortcomings make the footage sharper, not duller, so the errors have made your footage sharp but in a way that it never was - it's fictional sharpness.
Also, the more modern displays are also themselves becoming sharper, so it's no wonder that footage all now looks like those glitch websites from the late 90s that were trying to be cool but looked like a graphic designer threw up into them...

FilmLight (who make BaseLight which is the Resolve competitor that costs as much as a house) seem to be on a mission to get deeper into the image and bring along the industry on that journey, and I'm really appreciative of their efforts as they're providing more insight into things we can do to get better images and get more value from our limited budgets.

We all know that cameras produce (sometimes dramatically) different images and image quality, and yet we also know that within a given price range those same cameras typically use the same sensors from Sony and are recording to the same codecs in basically the same bitrates.  It's maddening!
So, WTF is going on?  
Well, I just came upon this talk below, which goes through and demonstrates some of the inner workings in greater detail than I had previously seen:
It's long, but here's my notes...
Firstly, how you de-mosaic / de-bayer the image really matters, with some algorithms being higher quality and require higher processing power:
(Click on the images to zoom in - quality isn't the best but the effects are visible)


If you're not shooting RAW then this will be done in-camera, and if your manufacturer skimped on the processor they put in there, this will be happening to your footage.
If the camera is scaling the image, then the quality of this matters too:

and if the scaling even gets done in the wrong colour space then it can really screw things up:

There's more discussions in there, especially around colour science which has been discussed to death, but I thought these might be illuminating as it's not something we get to see that much because it's buried in the camera and typically it's not something we can easily play with in the NLE.
All these add up to a fundamental principle that I have been gradually gravitating towards.
If you're shooting non-RAW then shoot in the highest resolution you can shoot in, and just un-sharpen (blur) the image in post.
Shooting in the highest resolution means that your camera will be doing the least downscaling (or none), and most glitches and bad processing will be at the pixel-level, which means that the higher the resolution the smaller those glitches and errors compared to the size of the image, and un-sharpening de-emphasises these in the footage.  
You might notice that all of these shortcomings make the footage sharper, not duller, so the errors have made your footage sharp but in a way that it never was - it's fictional sharpness.
Also, the more modern displays are also themselves becoming sharper, so it's no wonder that footage all now looks like those glitch websites from the late 90s that were trying to be cool but looked like a graphic designer threw up into them...

FilmLight (who make BaseLight which is the Resolve competitor that costs as much as a house) seem to be on a mission to get deeper into the image and bring along the industry on that journey, and I'm really appreciative of their efforts as they're providing more insight into things we can do to get better images and get more value from our limited budgets.