KnightsFan

You're not wrong, but the complicated part is deciding whether you can afford storage and computing power, or whether to use that money on lenses, snacks for your crew, other life expenses, etc.

@Ilkka Nissila I don't necessarily want "log," specifically, but the arbitrary curves from most photo cameras are more difficult to work with, compared to a documented curve that the editing software can mathematically transform into a common space. And yes, while log does move bit depth from the main exposure range, 10 bit is plenty of depth to overcompensate.

This is my reason for shooting photos raw. The difference between 8-bit jpeg and raw photos is much greater than between 10-bit log and raw video. And also most in-camera jpeg profiles aren't exactly documented, afaik. With a documented log curve you can adjust white balance and exposure in post, and while you lose "some" fidelity vs raw, the transformations are accurate. So on a slightly different topic, I'd personally really like for more photo cameras to shoot 10 bit log photos, and for standard photo editing software to have the same kind of color management that Resolve has. I don't do anything crazy to my photos, but I do see the limits of 8 bit jpeg in normal use, which I do not see with 10 bit log video. Overall, I sort of suspect that most people who want to shoot raw video already are. External raw recorders are easy enough, so if you're already committed to the workflow and HDD requirements, the external recorder often isn't the breaking point.

I'm not going to get an iphone, so unfortunately this isn't something I can use. I do, however, use a phone mounted on top of a camera for 3D motion tracking, when tracking the main footage isn't possible. For example, if the actual shot is a tight handheld shot of something with no tracking positions, I mount a phone on the camera rig, and use the wide angle for tracking. In an extreme case, I add tracking markers outside the main camera's field of view. Since I can't sync them, I shoot the phone at double frame rate, then choose whether to drop the even or odd frames, whichever gets closer to the exact timing of the main camera. So then my maximum timing offset is sub-frame. Genlock would make this all so much easier! Although--to be fair, at $1300 for an iphone + dock, I can probably just get another camera to dedicate to tracking.

First where you can flip the filter out of the way entirely, to fully clear, without trays.

I love this. I think there's a lot of room for innovation in merging AF and MF technologies, and this is a cool step. Speaking of adapters, I saw in CineD's coverage that Metabones' EF to E adapter with eND is available to purchase now. Afaik, that's the first adapter with a filter that doesn't require changing filter trays.

Yeah I was looking at the images posted back when I first mentioned the XLR inputs. It was obviously the XLR2D, but it clearly wasn't the analog one since it didn't have the battery pack underneath. I wonder if Tascam is updating it to have dual ADC and 32 bit float, or if it's the one they already have for Canon and Fuji?

For context, I went to film school and have worked on many projects with 2-3 people per camera, ones where I managed multiple cameras on my own, 16mm film projects, and everything in between. On the other side, I've also shot live concerts for music videos, which, incidentally, the ZR would be a fantastic choice for. So while I don't have the experience of many of the active pros here, I understand camera use cases. I never said anything about single cards being a requirement. I said that if you use the camera on any kind of support (tripod, jib, car rig, shoulder rig, gimbal) it's going to be a massive pain to change the card, ergo the ZR is designed almost exclusively for handheld, unrigged use. Almost every shot on most (not all) cinema projects uses a support system. The Alexa and Raptor are quintessential cinema cameras. Actually, I consider dual cards to be most beneficial in documentary settings, where retakes are impossible and you don't have multiple cameras for coverage. @eatstoomuchjammentioned the Z Cam F6. Z Cam's original prototypes for the E2 put the CFast card on the bottom, but they changed it because of feedback saying it would be too cumbersome to access. I consider the F6 to be a cinema camera, as a category, because it is designed to be used in a variety of situations that are typical for cinematic capture, and Z Cam discovered that included being able to change the card. Obviously, it's a lower end camera, relatively speaking, and there are plenty of photo cameras with better video quality. Because it's impossible to tell on the internet, I'll reiterate that I'm quite happy to agree to disagree about terminology! And I am genuinely happy when people do things differently than I would.

Everyone knows you can use an FX3, or an iphone, or a 5D2, or a ZR to make a great movie, and they knew it before making clickbait videos about how crazy it is that someone would use the FX3 for their project. Doesn't make any of those into cinema cameras. If the definition of a cinema camera is that you can use it to make a movie, then let me just respond to a few work emails on my cinema camera -- which, btw, has seen use in some of my serious projects as the best tool forthe job in that scenario.

That's my secret, Cap. I'm always angry 🙂 Since you never know on the internet, I'm mostly tongue in cheek with all that. I don't really care what anyone calls anything, I understand marketing always has a dubious relationship with the truth, and I always evaluate purchase decisions based on the capabilities rather than name. (And I said the same thing about the "box" moniker someone slapped on the C50 rumors, so I'm not here bashing Nikon.) But in seriousness, the broader a term grows, the less valuable it is. If everything is a cinema camera, nothing is a cinema camera.

I think Gerald got the categorization right, and of all the things you can call the ZR, cinema camera is not one of them. No reason it can't be used for great movies. There's also no reason you can't pull still frames from a Komodo and sell them as photographs without it being a photo camera or even a hybrid. You don't need to be a photographer or a cinematographer to understand categories of tools. The thing about these comparisons between cheap and expensive cameras is that it kinda works with all cameras. The ZR isn't unique in being indistinguishable from an expensive camera when shot in a controlled environment and viewed in compressed 4K YouTube videos. It's been a few years since I had any concerns about pure image quality from really any camera. I for one have high hopes for Nikon/Red going forward, which is why I'm relatively disappointed that their first camera is not really ergonomically catered to what I'd like.

That card placement is rough for anything other than handheld which is why it screams content creator to me. You can certainly find specific projects where it's not an issue, but if you're like me and only have a single camera used for all projects, that's a complete non starter. No way am I taking a camera all the way off the gimbal/tripod/jib/car rig to change cards, when there are other cameras--including the Z6III--that would save all that trouble. I understand some people really get into Raw, but I haven't cared about Raw ever since decent 10 bit capture became the norm, and you implied a similar thing earlier so we're on the same page for that, I think. I mean of course I agree that 10 years ago, this would have been mind blowing, but that's just how it goes, right? Higher ability leads to higher expectation. And to be extremely clear: everyone who finds this to be exactly what they want, that's great! Nikon just made a lot of strange choices in my opinion.

Is that official? I didn't see it mentioned in the Newsshooter article or Nikon's site, though there is that one picture. If so then I guess at least that one is solved for.

What a bizarre camera. R3D, but dinky micro HDMI. 32 bit float audio, but no XLR module. I'd consider this one the most egregious misuse of a "cinema" moniker of the recent releases. The card slots are on the bottom--have fun getting to those when it's on a tripod. I don't see a mention of timecode input. The only reason I would even call it a video camera is that, without an EVF, it's useless for photography. Edit: and yes, I realize it's relatively cheap, I'm not exactly saying it's a bad value, just contradictory in some ways

I'm looking at the two pictures, and they look like different cameras, whether they are from the same video or not. Clearly they are different adapters due to the word "Viltrox" being in different places. Both could be PL-L adapters, but they aren't the same one.