KnightsFan

So I’ve bought the Z CAM-S6, hoping it would be useful for some upcoming projects. However, I planned to sell it after finishing those projects, unless I find myself in love with this camera. 
Anyway, I took the camera with some friends and shot a little video. We didn’t plan beforehand because this was meant to be more of a feeling out process and a camera test. I’ve tried very hard to make it a more coherent story, though I must admit it is still very confusing. 
1. Modular design is fantastic because you can build it up the way you wanted, however the cost adds up very quickly. 
2. Very well built, but the metal body makes it a little bit heavy, despite the size. 
3. A lot of codec and resolution options. It’s always nice to have internal ProRes recording and H265 is very efficient indeed. 
4. Image Quality is detailed and organic, and you can always shoot in 6K. 
5. Battery life is quite good, especially if you use a bigger battery.
6. Control needs time to get used to, and it’s still slower than a proper video camera like the C200 and FS5. 
7. CFast 2.0 Card is VERY EXPENSIVE. This forces me to use H265, which sometimes requires transcoding.  
8. AF is just as bad as, if not worse than, EVA1. Normally, this won’t be an issue but…
9. The HDMI Output is very soft, for some reason. Maybe this is due to user error. The image is so soft that even using a 6 inch monitor, it is still hard to judge focus sometimes. This is my biggest problem by far. 
10. Playback is in LOW resolution. Clients may not like feel confident about the footage you just captured.
The whole video is shot in 6K 2.4:1 mode, 23.976 FPS ,with Z-Log2 and in H265. All is shot handheld. I’ve mainly used the Sigma 18-35 1.8 and for one shot the Canon 85 1.4. 
Thank you.
PS. I'm not sure should I make a topic like this. I apologize first if it violates the rules.  

Yes, it's a very bad thing to feed gullible people falsehoods that is personalized to appeal to them, and then ask them to vote in elections, be responsible for getting their own vaccinations and preventative healthcare, be responsible for the environment, or drive on the same roads as the rest of us.
If people's actions only affected themselves then "ignorance is bliss" could be true, but when people's ignorance hurts others, there is no bliss.

I feel like there is a crowd for these videos here. Apologies for the shameless self promotion though.

Read my take on it here...
https://www.eoshd.com/news/down-the-rabbit-hole-view-the-youtube-front-page-as-others-do/
View the YouTube front page as others do:
https://www.their.tube

Not really, it is $349 vs $199 for the Zoom F2-BT, which needs the Ultrasync BLUE, thus for a single bodypack recorder setup with TC you're looking at an identical price either which way. (actually, the Zoom will be *more* expensive than Tentacles if you're not already part of the TCS Ltd ecosystem, as you'll have to get a USO too. And that is ignoring other little details, like the Zoom you still need to buy batteries and a Micro SD card for, but you don't need to for the Tentacle)

My biggest worry with Z-cam is if the company went under. Otherwise they are super responsive to problems and the Facebook group is very quick to respond. 

Compared to say blackmagic I feel like they are more on top of the wants of their customers. They already have an internal E-ND option out where as blackmagic still has yet to put anything like that out. Unlike other camera companies they are giving us the full capabilities of the Sony sensors everyone is using. Also the Z-cam doesn't take 23 seconds to boot like the komodo lol. 


But yeah I would say the C70 is easily more compact. You don't actually really need anything to shoot with it. On the other side if you are going to use an external monitor (maybe because you want to see something in bright sunlight), something like the Z-cam or Komodo makes more sense. 

btw I am an owner of the E2 S6 and original E2. 
 

I also got a Z Cam E2M4, though somewhat unwillingly if I'm honest. I got it for the image quality, frame rate options, and wireless control. If such a thing existed, I might have gotten a DSLR-shaped E2*. However, the benefit of the boxy shape is it's easier to balance on a gimbal, and I do intend to swap out the mount for a turbomount at some point, which is a useful modularity. I also really appreciate the NPF sled, which lasts forever without the bulk and extra accessories for V mount. The other aspect that I really like are the numerous 1/4-20 mounts. I generally use the camera pretty bare, but I have a NATO rail on either side and can slip on handles in 2 seconds for a wide, stable grip. A DSLR would need a cage for that.
Most of the annoyances with DSLR-shaped camera come down to photo-oriented design, not the than non-modular design. Lack of easy, locking power connectors, lack of timecode, fiddly HDMI D ports, incomprehensible menus, lack of NDs--all could be solved while maintaining a traditional DSLR shape, and some camers do come along with some of them from time to time.
On the other hand, cameras like the FS7 and C100 are packed with nice features, but I really don't use any of them apart from ND's and they just make for obnoxiously large bodies that are even harder and more expensive to use. My perspective though is from narrative shoots where we spend more time on rehearsals and lights than anything else, so we're never concerned with setup times for the camera.
 
*before anyone mentions the GH5S, the E2's image is much nicer in my opinion and has way more video perks.

Setup times are important, putting a monitor on your camera when you pull it out of your backpack does take some time and you might loose a cool shot + its not fun, I would rather be tempted to leave the camera at home/hotel. Putting it away in your backpack with the monitor still attached it might hurt the sdi/hdmi connector.
But I do really like the komodo, if I did this thing full time  I would def get one. And get a bunch of other cameras as well.

Seems like lots of new affordable modular cinema cameras have come out, with some cool specs like 4K120 or 4K60 10-bit, etc....  or even just getting FF video without a crop, overheating, or crippled codecs.
So, who is going modular?
How are you finding the transition?
My most recent acquisition was a BMMCC and my first modular setup, and I found that getting used to having a separate monitor, needing multiple batteries, cables and cable management, as well as having to rely on a rig just for ergonomics were all a bit of a PITA actually.  Plus, despite the BMMCC being really small, and paired with a tiny monitor, the whole rig gets large pretty quickly.
and considering that we can't talk about modular cameras without showing awesome pictures of rigs, here's the BMMCC in my sunset configuration:

I went Z-Cam earlier this year.

I was planning to go with the UMP G2 but then Covid happened and all my work dried up so that went on hold. When it started up again, I decided to grab the Z-Cam E2-S6 instead as it covered a lot of the same bases (my prerequisites were Prores, 4K100p, Internal ND & v-mount power option) for a lot less money. It was also a small, lightweight package that I didn't have to spend half a day prepping/packing/charging/rigging before a shoot. This was important for me as when bookings started to come back, they were a lot different and instead of being multiple-day crewed shoots plus travel they mostly became local half-day affairs with no other crew. I needed something where I could instantly say yes when I'd get called and asked to do a 3-hour shoot the following morning, and still know it would be worthwhile and effortless and that I could get everything prepped in time easily. The camera sits on my desk or shelf and when I have a small shoot, I just put a battery on the charger the night before and then I'm good to go for about 6 hours of shooting - no other prep required.

While the camera has served its purpose for this - especially once I had a decent handheld rig - It has its shortcomings. The eND kit which I ordered in May is still backordered so I'm stuck with rectangle filters for now (in a Tilta mini matte box). Some of the controls are clunky. Audio is a pain - the mini-XLR breakaway cable I have does not fit when using my v-mount plate, so I've got a Zoom H5 due this week, which I plan to mostly use a mixer & pre-amp (rather than purely as a recorder).  I've had a few producers ask me what camera I shoot with and they've never heard of the Z-Cam - though luckily this didn't lose me any of the jobs because most of the work lately is local and I'm in a regional market so I'm often their only option (unless they want a hybrid shooter who can't do sound or lighting).

The image is fantastic though. I don't shoot charts or do tests, but for actual in-the-field performance it is great - there's never been a time when the image quality has been the limiting factor in any way - and there's not many cameras under $10K where that can be said.

Respectfully, it’s not.
The lens is just one part of the equation.
You can put great glass on a shit camera and it’s still a shit camera just as a shit lens on a great camera is still a shit lens.
A great photographer with an average camera will always out-shoot a complete muppet with uber-expensive kit.
I will put skills before kit every time.
But phones, some of them are looking a bit good and I’m one of those people that went to just using my phone over a camera...but gone back to camera despite the ‘inconvenience’.
Can’t deny the capability of some phones these days in the right hands however. There’s some great stuff in another thread on this forum.

Have smartphones overtaken the best medium format cameras for dynamic range?
This is a comparison that should worry everybody in the camera industry.
Full blog post:
https://www.eoshd.com/news/fuji-gfx-100-loses-to-huawei-p40-pro-plus-smartphone-for-dynamic-range/

- export prores on windows
- better graphics support jpg, png, psd without jagged lines etc
- auto color correct clips to each other (manual matching cameras kinda sucks without a color checker)
- better render quality for h264

Here is my entire wish list for DaVinci Resolve 17....it's a long one:
 
- Make the Fusion tab as stable as the edit tab...ok that's all 

@hyalinejimI don't disagree with anything you said. But I do think that the difference between the two images you posted is very subtle to the point that without flipping back and forth, neither one would really stand out as "thicker". That's why I'm saying thickness is mostly (not entirely, but mostly) about the colors in the scene, as well as of course exposure and white balance. There's a definite improvement between the pics, but I don't think that it makes or breaks the image.
On the other hand I think the colors in my phone pics went from being stomach-turningly terrible to halfway decent with just a little water.
Another way to put it, is I don't think you'd get a significantly thicker image out of any two decent digital/film cameras given the same scene and sensible settings. You can definitely eke small gains out with subtle color adjustment, and I agree with your analysis of what makes it better, I just don't see that as the primary element.

Quick demo of the effect of water on image thickness. Just two pics from my (low end) phone cropped and scaled for manageable size. These may be the worst pictures in existence, but I think that simply adding water, thereby increasing specularity, contrast, and color saturation makes a drastic increase in thickness. Same settings, taken about 5 seconds apart.

 

I don't know what all the negativity is about, this looks pretty good to me. Worse specs than a Z Cam E2, but you gain Panasonic Brand (brands aren't my thing but brands are worth real money), SDI, timecode without an annoying adapter, and you can use that XLR module if you want. Plus it takes SD cards instead of CFast. If Z Cam didn't exist I'd get this for sure.

@kyeI don't think those images quite nail it. I gathered a couple pictures that fit thickness in my mind, and in addition to the rich shadows, they all have a real sense of 3D depth due to the lighting and lenses, so I think that is a factor. In the pictures you posted, there are essentially 2 layers, subject and background. Not sure what camera was used, but most digital cameras will struggle in actual low light to make strong colors, or if the camera is designed for low light (e.g., A7s2) then it has weak color filters which makes getting rich saturation essentially impossible.
 
Here's a frame from The Grandmaster which I think hits peak thickness. Dark, rich colors, a couple highlights, real depth with several layers and a nice falloff of focus that makes things a little more dreamy rather than out of focus.

And the scopes which clearly show the softness of the tones and how mostly everything falls into shadows.

 
 
For comparison, here's the scopes from the picture of the man with the orange shirt in the boat which shows definite, harsh transitions everywhere.

 
 
Perhaps, do you have some examples? For example that bright daylight Kodak test posted earlier here
Has this scope (mostly shadow though a little brighter than the Grandmaster show, but fairly smooth transitions). And to be honest, I think the extreme color saturation particularly on bright objects makes it look less thick.

To me, the "thickness" of a film image is revealed by a rich, complex color(s).  That color is not necessarily saturated nor dark.
 
That "thickness" of film emulsion has nothing to do with lighting nor with what is showing in the image.  Certainly, for the thickness to be revealed, there has to be some object in the frame that reflects a complex color.  An image of a white wall will not fully utilize the color depth of an imaging system.  However, a small, single color swatch within a mostly neutral image can certainly demonstrate "thickness."
 
I don't think that's how it works.  Of course, there is also reversal film.
 
 
Agreed.  Digital tends to make skin tones mushy (plastic?) compared to film.
Look at the complex skin tones in some of these Kodachrome images.  There is a lot going on in those skin tones that would be lost with most digital cameras.  In addition, observe the richness and complexity of the colors on the inanimate objects.
 
 
Yes.  Please note that most of the images in the above linked gallery are brightly lit and/or shot during broad daylight.
 
 
Agreed.  I think that the quality that you seek is inherent in film emulsion, and that quality exists regardless of lighting and regardless of the overall brightness/darkness of an image.
 
 
Because of the extensive color depth and the distinctive color rendering of normal film emulsion, variations in tone are often more apparent with film.  Not sure if that should be considered to be more of a gradual transition in chroma/luma or to be just higher "color resolution."
 
 
Those images are nice, but they seem thinner than the Kodachrome images in the linked gallery above.
 
 
The image is nicely crafted, but I read that it was shot on Fuji Eterna stock.  Nevertheless, to me its colors look "thinner" than those shown in this in this Kodachrome gallery.
 
 
Great site!  Thanks for the link!
 
 
I disagree.  I think that the "thickness" of film is inherent in how emulsion renders color.
 
 
The cross-lighting in that "Grandmaster" image seems hard and contrasty to me (which can reveal texture more readily than a softer source).  I don't see many smooth gradations/chirascuro.
 
 
Evidently, OP seeks the "thickness" that is inherent in film emulsion, regardless of lighting and contrast.
 
 
Nice shots!
Images from CCD cameras such as the Digital Bolex generally seem to have "thicker" color than their CMOS counterparts.
However, even CCD cameras don't seem to have the same level of thickness as many film emulsions.
 
 
That certainly is a pretty image.
Keep in mind that higher resolution begets more color depth in an image.  Furthermore, if your image was shot with Blackmagic Ursa Min 12K, that sensor is supposedly RGBW (with perhaps a little too much "W"), which probably yields nicer colors.

A lot of our examples have been soft, vintage, or film. I just watched the 12k sample footage from the other thread and I think that it displays thick colors despite being an ultra sharp digital capture. So I don't think that softening optics or post processing is a necessity.

 

Yes, I think the glow helps a lot to soften those highlights and make them dreamier rather than sharp and pointy and make it more 3D in this instance where the highlights are in the extreme background (like you said, almost like mist between subject and background).
I agree, the relation between the subject and the other colors is critical and you can't really change that with different sensors or color correction. That's why I say it's mainly about what's in the scene. Furthermore, if your objects in frame don't have subtle variation you can't really add that in. The soft diffuse light comign from the side in the Grandmaster really allows every texture to have a smooth gradation from light to dark, whereas your subject in the boat is much more evenly lit from left to right.
I assume you're also not employing a makeup team? That's really the difference between good and bad skin tones, particularly in getting different people to look good in the same shot.

@kyeI don't think those images quite nail it. I gathered a couple pictures that fit thickness in my mind, and in addition to the rich shadows, they all have a real sense of 3D depth due to the lighting and lenses, so I think that is a factor. In the pictures you posted, there are essentially 2 layers, subject and background. Not sure what camera was used, but most digital cameras will struggle in actual low light to make strong colors, or if the camera is designed for low light (e.g., A7s2) then it has weak color filters which makes getting rich saturation essentially impossible.
 
Here's a frame from The Grandmaster which I think hits peak thickness. Dark, rich colors, a couple highlights, real depth with several layers and a nice falloff of focus that makes things a little more dreamy rather than out of focus.

And the scopes which clearly show the softness of the tones and how mostly everything falls into shadows.

 
 
For comparison, here's the scopes from the picture of the man with the orange shirt in the boat which shows definite, harsh transitions everywhere.

 
 
Perhaps, do you have some examples? For example that bright daylight Kodak test posted earlier here
Has this scope (mostly shadow though a little brighter than the Grandmaster show, but fairly smooth transitions). And to be honest, I think the extreme color saturation particularly on bright objects makes it look less thick.

@tuppMaybe we're disagreeing on what thickness is, but I'd say about 50% of the ones you linked to are what I think of as thick. The canoe one in particular looked thick, because of the sparse use of highlights and the majority of the frame being rather dark, along with a good amount of saturation.
The first link I found to be quite thin, mostly with shots of vast swathes of bright sky with few saturated shadow tones.
The kodachrome stills were the same deal. Depending on the content, some were thick and others were thin. If they were all done with the same film stock and process, then that confirms to me that it's mostly what is in the scene that dictates that look.
I think that's because they are compressed into 8 bit jpgs, so all the colors are going to be smeared towards their neighbors to make them more easily fit a curve defined by 8 bit data points, not to mention added film grain. But yeah, sort of a moot point.

I think the light and amount of contrast of the scene makes a huge difference to the image thickness.  When you have a good amount of contrast in your scene with areas of shadow and bright highlights, and your object is well exposed then you can bring the blacks down were they belong and help with the perceived thickness (and also reduce the perceived grain/noise).  Were I notice the main difference with cameras that produce thicker images like the digital Bolex is with skin tones and also foliage/leaves/trees etc.  Whether it's the tonality/colour gamut/saturation/shadow saturation or all of these when combined with good light they just look more alive. Here is a screen shot from the D16 (not mine) which while compressed to heck look 'thick' and alive to me.
 
 
 
 

@kyeI don't think those images quite nail it. I gathered a couple pictures that fit thickness in my mind, and in addition to the rich shadows, they all have a real sense of 3D depth due to the lighting and lenses, so I think that is a factor. In the pictures you posted, there are essentially 2 layers, subject and background. Not sure what camera was used, but most digital cameras will struggle in actual low light to make strong colors, or if the camera is designed for low light (e.g., A7s2) then it has weak color filters which makes getting rich saturation essentially impossible.
 
Here's a frame from The Grandmaster which I think hits peak thickness. Dark, rich colors, a couple highlights, real depth with several layers and a nice falloff of focus that makes things a little more dreamy rather than out of focus.

And the scopes which clearly show the softness of the tones and how mostly everything falls into shadows.

 
 
For comparison, here's the scopes from the picture of the man with the orange shirt in the boat which shows definite, harsh transitions everywhere.

 
 
Perhaps, do you have some examples? For example that bright daylight Kodak test posted earlier here
Has this scope (mostly shadow though a little brighter than the Grandmaster show, but fairly smooth transitions). And to be honest, I think the extreme color saturation particularly on bright objects makes it look less thick.