eatstoomuchjam

Ah, maybe, but I'm saying they could release this exact camera at the same price, but with a different brand/form factor and influencers would go crazy for it. I'm not even trying to create my dream tiny 4k camera that uses my C and D mount lenses (that might be the altcinecam thingie). 😅

One thought is that if Panasonic want to charge a premium for their cameras, especially in this day and age, there's a straightforward path to it. So Panasonic/Lumix marketing folks, if you read this, here is a free suggestion: Panasonic were never huge in cameras until the digital age (yes, I know there were 35mm cameras and no, nobody has nostalgia for the C-D353AF or the C-D900ZM). So find an old film camera brand that people used to love, but is no longer made. Some of the big ones have been eaten by the competitors (e.g. Hasselblad/DJI), but the people who bought Rollei are producing junk with the name - but you could also consider someone like Bronica, Agfa, or Ansco. Or hell, Voigtlander is all lenses now. Maybe they want to sell bodies too. Or for film, you could try grabbing Bell & Howell from the vultures who have been using it to sell crap - or maybe Mitchell or Aaton? Don't think I've seen a digital Mitchell. So let's say Mitchell. So buy or license the beloved film camera brand. Now tweak your SOOC colors a little bit. It doesn't have to be a lot. Just... enough to make the images feel a little more nostalgic to people. I dunno, maybe make them a little browner and a little lower contrast. I'll leave the interpretation of nostalgic up to your capable engineers. Next, instead of a body format based on the design of a 35mm camera, go for a retro-styled look more similar to a Bolex or one of the more art deco-looking super 8 cameras. Think less "SLR" and less "box" and think more "ellipse." Then move away from drab product names that are just a soup of meaningless letters and numbers. Then give a proper release to the camera without getting people jazzed up in advance for something it isn't. When you announce the new Mitchell Fox Grandeur Digital Cinema Camera featuring the exact same feature list as the S1 II, you'll have influencers across the spectrum talking about how beautiful it is and the rich heritage of Mitchell cameras.

It's definitely a fair question. Fuji's is definitely not perfect, judging by my GFX 100 II, but it's generally usable. That seems similar to what I've seen/heard of the S1R II and S1 II (Media Division did some pretty decent real-world tests and... they weren't outstanding) And I'd put DJI's in a similar category, though it also requires the most comfort/familiarity, especially with the Focus Pro which uses a second camera with a second screen for control and because it's LIDAR-based, has a limited (but useful) range where focus even works at all. They're all better than Red's, though. Red's is in a category that I'd describe as "almost usable, but will probably break your heart if you try to rely on it." 😅 Sure, and Fuji with the GF 100RF as well at 5 grand. Though it's also not clear how many of them they're actually pumping out of the factory. It doesn't seem like they're shipping in thousands upon thousands of units.

I've been seeing on YouTube that some of the influencers have been going on about how great the old/small Panasonics were. If you want to see something really bonkers, look at current GM1 pricing - a lot of them going for about $500 in a kit with the 12-32. Since those went so crazy, now I'm seeing some from adjacent influencers saying "Hey, everybody! The GF* series is also really great and small and btw, some shoot 4K" so I'm not surprised they're going up now too.

You asked an easily-googled question and used phrases like "I don't pay much attention to new releases and am probably fairly behind but are there full-frame anamorphic lens options on the market just yet?" That phrase basically screams "do my research for me," as does the follow mention of the Blazar Mantis, a 1.33x anamorphic lens with an oval aperture and no autofocus, but in the context of "I thought I heard of..." which, again, is a thing that is easily resolved by yourself with a 10 second google search for "Mantis Anamorphic." As to the rest, lighten up, Francis. The point of most forums isn't for people to do simple google searches for you, but (hopefully) to have more interesting discussions. Asking things like "Does anybody have personal experience with the new Mantis anamorphics" or "Looking for experiences about the Blazar Apex autofocus anamorphic" might actually yield something interesting.

Ah, I missed that you said autofocus. Updated: https://letmegooglethat.com/?q=1.33x+anamorphic+autofocus+full+frame In short, yes, some exist, and no, nobody here would have any insight as to the product plans for anamorphic lens manufacturers next year.

Are you actually gonna produce it? I'm ready to watch. Just keep in mind that outside of a fairly small community of camera nerds, nobody will really "get" it. If it were me, I'd try to make it more universal - could be a fashion influencer or similar. I'm sure that this pattern of stuff is really common among other influencer communities too - I'd think of like the Ezarik sisters who both do a bunch of lifestyle influencer marketing. They never met a robot vacuum, electric car, or new Apple release that they didn't love and showcase in a very postiive, nicely-lit, non-threatening way.

There are a number of full frame anamorphics on the market ranging from "affordable" to "costs more than a car." Otherwise, https://letmegooglethat.com/?q=1.33x+full+frame+anamorphic

As expected, Camera Conspiracies is not a fan. As always, it's recommended that fanboys of any system take his trolling with the biggest grain of salt.

I can speak to Resolve, but I'm sure that other editors can do it too. For something like the above, set your timeline to a 16:9 aspect ratio. Import your footage and set the pixel aspect ratio to 1.33, 1.5, 1.6, 2.0, etc. Then in project settings, go to the image scaling tab. I believe you'd use "scale entire image to fit." Then you should have what you're looking for - output with black bars at the top and bottom where you can write things.

Is it really better than Fuji's? And DJI's is arguably better too. 😅

Tony and Chelsea are just excited for the chance to put out some sort of content other than Tony reading various rumor sites to the camera, dumb "what's the best camera" videos, sponsored software content, and insipid camera-vs-camera comparisons. Also, they seem to have made a huge mistake uploading that one to YouTube - they forgot to use the photo of Tony looking surprised in the thumbnail. Seriously - they're really channeling their old stock photography days with that one. It's on like 50% of their thumbnails.

Theoretically, this is true, but in some cases, manufacturers will raise prices across the board. In some cases, to subsidize a lower profit margin in the US while keeping the prices reasonable. The whole thing is a freakin' mess. Heck, Leica raised prices in Canada and the US despite that Canada added no new tariffs on them.

Some other bits gleaned from watching a few reviews: 4kp120 is at 1.17x crop, not full sensor width (from the Petapixel review) Autofocus is... still not quite Canon/Sony level (from the Media Division review) Dynamic range, especially with DRO on, looks very nice (from the MD review)

Part of the problem is that the difference in prices is enough that the impatient might just decide to ditch their Lumix gear and buy Nikon. "You can have the same sensor, but with worse RS and a little more DR, and btw, it costs almost 2x as much" is not the selling point that one might think.

To be clear, the specs of the camera, as understood from leaks, are fine. They're not bad and they're not doom and gloom. They're just... not great and they're mostly not too exciting. Put the spec sheet for this camera against the spec sheets for most other cameras in the same price range and reactions will generally range from "Oh, OK" to "Well, that's alright." That's the real problem. There's nothing in that spec sheet that makes people want to sell their Sony to move to Panasonic. There's nothing in that spec sheet that makes people want to sell their Canon and jump to Panasonic. There's nothing... etc Nikon ... etc.

Which sites? The stuff I see on l-rumors.com basically matches up to what's been posted here - an incredibly mediocre camera which, if the price rumors are true, will not be at an extremely competitive price.

I think I fell asleep reading that. It'll be interesting to see if having the first native ISO at 100 juices the tested DR numbers a bit, but as MrSMW said, having the second native ISO as low as 800 is both weird and not what a lot of people are going to want. That seems to be dooming the camera to shitty low-light performance, either because of a ton of noise or because the camera eats the noise internally and there's no detail (and that's coming from the owner of at least one camera with a single native ISO of 800!). (Edit: Just saw MurtlandPhoto's response and 640/5000 would be a lot more appropriate/useful!) Otherwise, not a single one of those specs really stands out from a bunch of cameras that are already on the market. The fact that the 4kp120 options are only in APS-C mode or 2.4:1 is even a bit sad, given that the Z8 and R5 II can do it in 16:9 and even the ZV-E1 can do it with only a small (10%? Something like that) crop. This seems to be another entry in the "if you already have a big investment in L-mount lenses, maybe you don't have to sell them, but it's not going to bring you into the system" category.

Well, other than 32-bit audio, Fuji. And often at a much lower price. And honestly a lot of people, me included, have no reason to give a shit whether the camera captures 32-bit audio. Most of my shoots are on sets with separate sound being captured and we sync by timecode so other than hopefully not sounding awful for viewing dailies, the sound captured by the camera is mostly ornamental. I should also add that most of those audio engineers, despite having 32-bit capable recorders, just record 24-bit anyway because "the files get too big" (which usually gets a sad laugh from me, looking at my camera recording 6k or 8k raw). In short, I don't need my camera to become a better sound recorder. If I were doing more run and gun interview sort of stuff, then maybe. Plus, as far as I can remember, 32-bit audio requires an extra device sold for $500. At that point, it's not all that meaningfully different than the cheaper and similar-sized Zoom F3 ($300) which I could just mount on any camera, record secondary 32-bit audio, and feed a clean signal from it into the camera's mic/line in to record at 24-bit in-camera. Then I would have perfectly decent audio in the camera and if something clipped in such a way that I wanted 32-bit, I could just pull the SD card from the F3. Anyway. Keep in mind that if we're talking about a $3,800 camera like the S1R II, it's also in competition with cameras like the (cheaper) Komodo which does open gate (though with a 17:9 sensor, but it can also crop down if you want anamorphic), allows baking in a LUT, can record ProRes, has nearly every monitoring tool (including the surprisingly useful traffic light monitoring system). And a $3,800, the S1R II is really not that far off from the Ronin 4D ($5,000), Canon C80 ($5,500), and Sony FX6 ($6,000). It's a great and capable camera - and I've seen at least one filmmaker who bought it to pair with his R4D (as I expected since the sensors are identical or close to it) as a much more portable travel camera, but Panasonic really either need to focus on the value for money segment (S9 being a good example) or offer cameras with truly compelling features that others don't have in the same range (internal ND, etc). Otherwise, not only isn't there a compelling reason to pick them up, there's also less time spent educating people on why you're not using Sony.

All fair points. And the Z8 also supports 8kp60, I think, and probably with similar DR/RS/etc to the R5 or R5 II. My default is to think in terms of RF mount because I have some cameras with it. There are some small native autofocus lenses, FWIW, but everybody ignores them... and not without reason. They're about as interesting as a loaf of bread. I don't hate the 35/1.8 or the 50/1.8, though. The used prices are what's tempted me on multiple occasions. Yes, and using it with my M mount lenses is the specific thing that I find tempting. The body size and shape is very Leica-like and I don't have much desire to spend $6,000 on a Leica body which has specs identical to a Lumix that is half the price which, in turn, has specs identical to a camera I already own (or could buy for $1,800 on the used market). 😅

And not to belabor the R5 II, but... the R5 II can also do 4kp120 in some sort of line skipped or pixel binned full sensor width mode. And for video, it can do 8kp60 raw internally with 15.5ms readout, great dynamic range, and nice colors SOOC. It's not a perfect camera and specs aren't everything, but outside of people who are already invested in L mount, it's still hard to know which users are going to run out and buy the S1 II, just based on what specs I've seen so far. Sure, the S9 could absolutely be better! But at least Panasonic went out for a segment that really didn't include a lot of cameras and where there's demand. Tiny full frame 6K camera with a nice sensor for $1,400 brand new? Fantastic. And form factor that looks a lot like a Leica M and can use M mount glass? Also fantastic. I've been really close to buying it a few times and every time, I talk myself out of it by looking at camera size comparisons to my R5 and reminding myself that the S9 isn't so much smaller (and most of what makes the R5 bigger is the EVF which, as you've pointed out, is a really nice thing to have). That'd be even weirder - a brand new $5,000 camera to "compete" with a $3,900 camera that's already 4 years old. Meanwhile, there's a Pyxis 12K out there for about the same price and also available with L mount - which shoots super high quality 8K footage or 4K footage with no crop and without binning. Or a C80 available for only $500 more shooting 6K with triple native ISO, fantastic DR, professional I/O, and internal ND's. That'd be another "who's this camera for?" release.

At $3,800, I can't really figure out who is the target market. If I have $3,800 in my pocket and want a hybrid camera, I'm not buying the S1 II. If in the Panasonic ecosystem, it'd be the S1R II. And if not, the R5 II or the Z8. If I don't want a hybrid camera, now they're competing against a Komodo (plus accessories). Komodo isn't full frame, but it's closer to APS-H than APS-C and has global shutter and records in a raw format that I can import to my editor without converting to cDNG. So... what would be the selling point for a camera that will be apparently in an S5-like body, but cost just about the same as a different higher-resolution camera also in an S5-like body? I guess it'll have less rolling shutter if it's the Z6 III sensor. Is "come get a little less rolling shutter" a big selling point in 2025? I get the S9 - cheap full frame with great image quality. I get the S1R II - high resolution full frame with 8k video to compete with the other major players. I could even somewhat get the S1 IIe - if they add "professional" I/O ports like SDI and dedicated timecode, then it's an S5 II that fits better into mid-range shoots. But the S1 II, if described as above? I'm boggled.

I have no idea how marketing really works or what effective marketing looks like (sales, of course, but I have no insights there). But in theory, leaks get people all psyched to watch the release video. It gets them free airtime on dozens of podcasts, discussions on tons of message boards, etc. The real problem comes when the hype has been cranked up to ... well, a solid 7.3 (it is Panasonic, after all) and the release is a 4. If people are hoping that Panasonic is about to drop an S1H II and they come out with the S9, there's instead unhappiness and backlash and almost all of the release day coverage is people complaining about the camera. And then, like the S9, people start to come around and say "Oh, that's actually a nice camera." If Panasonic just teed up "we have a new ultra-small camera for creators coming," the day 1 reception might be delight instead of dismay!

In many cases, I'm pretty sure that the leaks are actually part of the marketing strategy for the manufacturers. They just want to be able to control how and when the leaks come out. Look how the trickle of leaks has inspired discussion on this forum. If Panasonic simply said they were releasing a camera on May 14 and then released it on that day with no leaks, it would be discussed here for maybe a week after (maybe less judging by the reactions above) and then a bit more when real people start receiving them. Instead, it's discussed for more than 2 weeks. The latam leak seems legit accidental, though - and I can't see it now. Judging by the discussion around it, I don't think I care much about that. Guessing it'll be a 6K camera that looks a lot like a camera (to judge by the leaked photos) and will have some fans and some detractors.

> Let alone replaced the S1H II I had on loan, which promptly bricked itself. @Andrew Reid This a typo or a hint of something to come?