eatstoomuchjam

Ursa Cine looks like a huge upgrade over UM12K - and priced to match. $15k for the base package. They kept 12K, but went full frame. It has much better DR and even though they didn't mention it (or if they did, I missed it), RS looked pretty good in their example footage. Media is up to 16 lanes of NVMe. I think Grant mentioned that the camera will come with an 8TB module which is made up of 4 separate drives (each with 4 lanes of NVMe). The camera also has 10gE for output. As far as why there's a USB-C on the front, it's actually for the EVF which connects by a single cable.

The new automatic parameters for denoising and the film look panel in Resolve are both a bit exciting. BMD might have just tanked sales for Dehancer and/or FilmConvert, especially if the new film look panel allows export/sharing of settings.

Improbable predictions: BMD will announce that they have been acquired by Ricoh/Pentax Resolve will be fully dropping support for BRAW and adopting ProRes RAW New DaVinci Resolve Nano Panel with only a single trackball and no sliders/knobs/buttons New DaVinci Resolve Pico Panel with just a single small button that can only order pizza from Dominos. What flavor of pizza? It'll be a surprise every time. Black Magic Cloud is merging with frame.io so that customers will only have to pay one subscription fee to share with people on either system Based on strong sales of the UM12K, there will now be a UM36K which uses a beam splitter and 3 copies of the UM12K sensor for each of the R, G, and B channels similar to 3-chip camcorders of the past New AI assist camera module that detects if you aren't recording in BM raw - and if not, a small robot version of Grant Petty jumps out and punches the user in the groin until the camera settings are updated

At least not new features for the stuff that's baked into the ASIC. At least in the case of Z Cam, the E2 got so many features through firmware updates that it's basically a different camera now than when it was released. 🙂

It's great that you can reshoot! I'd also say that if the composition/angles and/or lighting are boring, moving the camera is just a crutch anyway. Fincher's stuff usually looks great/cinematic and he rarely moves the camera. That said, moving the camera can be a great addition to good composition and lighting. Anyway, it sounds like you're off to a solid start! Looking forward to seeing some wip scenes or screen grabs!

Another factor for overheating can be the processor in the camera. The Z Cam E2 series are known for running very well even in fairly extreme conditions (though other components such as memory cards, SSD's, monitors, etc overheat). This is partly because of proper cooling/lack of IBIS, but also because a lot of image functions in the camera are done with ASIC vs the FPGA that some of the overheating cameras use. It has the drawback that Z Cam can't implement some changes (at least not without releasing a whole new controller board), but has big advantages for cooling and power use (can run for hours on an NP-F550). I guess they added a cooling fan to the new F6 Pro - so maybe they changed processors for it or they decided to cool the memory card, etc.

There's nothing wrong with baking in a LUT if that fits your goals. If you're handing off the footage to someone else to color/grade, they might resent you for it, though. As long as that isn't the case, the only thing that's really "wrong" is failing to get the shot/look that you wanted.

Yeah - as kye said, ISO is not invariant between cameras. In theory, it should be - as the name implies, there is actually an ISO standard (ISO 12232) for how sensitivity of a digital medium should be measured (and before it, there was one for how sensitivity of film should be measured), but either the digital spec is insufficiently exact or different manufacturers just choose to ignore some or all of it. This is one of the reasons that side by side camera shootouts tend to devolve to pointless arguments and bickering in the comment section. There are too many variables. Similarly, the t-stops marked on different cinema lenses aren't fully consistent between vendors in how much light they transmit. I haven't found them to be radically different (not nearly as much as with f-stops!), but there can be noticeable differences.

What difference did you expect to see? 4.5K vs 5K is barely any different and unless you're doing heavy grading or SFX work, going from 3:1 to 7.5:1 compression of raw footage should result in minimal impact to the visible image.

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.

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

For AF-S, unless you're shooting really fast-moving subjects (sports, race cars, etc), nearly every AF lens made since 1995 will be fine. Even stinkers like the Canon EF 85/1.2L are workable. With DFD, Panasonic made AF-C CDAF about as good as it seems likely ever to be. If not for the pulsing on still subjects, it would probably be enough for most projects. My GH5 was always frustratingly close to being usable with AF. Sure - people make a big deal of super fast apertures and extreme shallow DOF these days, but f/5.6 at 140mm is still relatively shallow, even on M43. Heck, even the RF 800/11 has relatively shallow DOF on FF. I'd add "Don't make yourself miserable by hauling around a boat anchor on a strap around your neck all day and night."

Since one of the stated reasons for documenting the journey was accountability, how did your first night of shooting go?

Gotcha - if you're more comfortable with the 35mm equivalent FOV, a 17ish vs a 20ish mm m43 lens makes total sense - and if you value AF, it's not your best option by far. From what I remember, it's a bit noisy and slow. I'm sure the Olympus 17 or the Panasonic 15 is faster. For me, the 14/2.5 and the 20/1.7 were no brains to keep in my kit when I was still using M43 because they were just so tiny. It felt silly not to bring them, especially since they're both really decent lenses. For me, the 75/1.8 was always useful for either portraits (though one has to stand a little further away than I like) or for landscapes (as I age, I like telephoto landscapes more and more - just choose the little bit of the scene that I want). The fast aperture let me get pretty sharp stuff even when shooting from a moving car or train without having to crank the ISO on a smaller sensor. At this point, I have a Summicron-M 90/2 ASPH so unless I'd need autofocus, I'd just prefer it for that sort of landscape shot (and on FF, it's a really nice length for portraits, to boot). Anyway, if you don't mind the aperture limitations of the 14-140 when it's racked to 75mm, you're definitely set there. For me, my travel kit contains a few redundant focal length primes - though they're less for the faster aperture now and more for being smaller/lighter/nondescript. Does 1 extra stop on the Fujinon 63/2.8 make any substantial difference than the 32-64/4 racked out? Not really. Is there any appreciable difference in quality on the prime? Not really. Are people more likely to ignore me when it's on there? Yes.

Oh, that and why prefer the 7Artisans 17/1.4 over the smaller (and pretty great) Panasonic 20/1.7?

Did you ever consider adding (or replacing one of the other lenses) with the Olympus 75/1.8? It's also pretty tiny, pretty cheap, and IMO it's one of the greatest lenses ever made for Micro 4/3.

For me, my willingness to use kickstarter is perversely whether or not the company already has a track record of delivering quality products successfully, either through kickstarter or through other platforms. Like recently, I backed a 4x10 film camera being made by a guy who has been selling a well-regarded line of pinhole cameras for years. I'm very confident that it will ship eventually. I've thankfully only been burnt a couple of times on pretty small things for products that never delivered... products that delivered and were awful? That's another story. Anyway, as I said, my interest in it, if I have any at all after it's released, would be as something I can mount on the back of a telephoto lens - or as something that can turn a pretty normal portrait lens into a long telephoto. Could be nice for travel where (at present) a long lens (200mm+) is a big and heavy thing that I often leave home.

You assume correctly. Yeah, I'm not saying in any way that it's perfect or that I don't get why a lot of people prefer a wider angle. It's why Sony came out with the ZV1 II - I just wish they hadn't taken a note from Canon and taken away a useful feature for every other useful feature that they added. The next time I buy a new iPhone (probably when the new one is announced later this year), it might even remover that use of the ZV1 for me since the newer ones can apparently record to an SSD now. I assume that there are also close-up diopters for those action cameras that also feature ND? One of the reasons that I shy away form using any of my action cameras for that kind of thing is that it's annoying to have to remember all of the necessary accessories and it's a bit fussy to have to put them on/take them off when the light changes (e.g. when walking into a building). With the ZV1, I just push a button and an ND filter pops into place. 🙂 Also, even if I were still regularly vlogging, I definitely wouldn't be trying to do it at the Vatican. When traveling abroad these days, I pretty much bring the GFX 100 II and a few lenses (and maybe a DJI Mini 3, depending on where)... and maybe a film camera, depending.

That's all pretty reasonable. Though at least for me, the ZV-1 works well at its widest - partly since I don't often want to film myself in extremely crowded situations. I have a mount on my dashboard with a 1/4x20 (it's on a little t-track that is made for the mounting points on a Jeep) where I can use it to film myself while driving (nearly the perfect focal length for this) and then since I'm usually going out to the middle of nowhere, there's really nobody to care that I'm there. When I put the ZV-1 on the little Sony bluetooth handle, it puts it just about 4-5 inches further from me which works out well enough for a head & shoulders shot (which is still tighter than a lot of the kids prefer, but I like it). This is an example - most of the "vlog" parts were with ZV-1 - either dash-mounted or on the handle. I think the car-mounted cameras were a Hero 9 and an Insta360 One R with 1" mod. Just about everything else including the silly thing with the Racetrack rocks at the end was on the original GFX 100. About the only thing that I'd change would be for the handle to be about 2-3" longer, to have the internal ND on the camera be another stop stronger, and for the lens OIS to be a bit better for bumpy roads (Jeeps, by design, have pretty stiff suspensions). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faS2uFTCZBM

If not for the challenges focusing/framing on the teeny tiny screen and lack of HDMI output (or wired connectivity to iPhone for video preview), I think my Backbone-modified Insta360 One R would be superior in almost every way (1" sensor, lots more frame rates/resolutions). It's too bad that wifi preview is laggy and that (at least the last time I checked), still pretty small since it won't rotate to landscape with the phone. But yeah, totally agreed that their main competition is action cameras. I'd also add used ZV1 ($450ish right now) and used RX100 V ($500ish) to the competitor list. I'd still use my ZV1 for vlogging stuff if I didn't have a backlog of unedited vlogs going back to 2020 or so. You can't swap the lens, but it's basically a 24-70 equiv. If people really want the 20mm of the wide for the micro, I guess they could get a used ZV1 II ($700) which has like an 18-50 equiv. lens (and better 3x ND filter), but has the minus of a slower and non-stabilized lens. For me, assuming the HDMI output is decent and not overly laggy (or the built-in screen is better than I'd expect), it'd be something I could mount on the back of some of my telephoto lenses to turn them into telescopes. 1/2.3" sensor + Leica R 250/4 = 1500mm equivalent lens. Or on the 560mm Telyt-R, a 3500mm (though since both lack any sort of stabilization, even on a heavy tripod with a sandbag, the slightest breeze will cause visible jitter) - and if any of the first-party lenses are better than the example images indicate, maybe they'd be a nice plus. 🙂

Potentially of interest to the people who want the smallest possible 4K MILC to carry around, the people at I'm Back (mostly known for making a ridiculous replacement film back with a tiny sensor for classic film cameras) are kickstarting a new mirrorless system that they call "Micro Mirrorless." Looks like it's based around IMX177 - so it's a 12 megapixel 1/2.3" sensor capable of 4kp24. It looks like they have plans for an adapter that allows lenses from other systems to be used (though of course with a 6x or so crop factor courtesy of the tiny sensor. From photos/video of the mount, I don't see any electrical contacts so I'm assuming that the adapter will be passive (hopefully it's micro 4/3 so that speed boosters are usable). Mostly, it's something to keep an eye on - I thought about taking a flyer on it since it's so cheap ($315 with 3 extremely mediocre lenses), but then I saw that they're not planning to ship until December 2024. If there's gonna be that much of a wait anyway, it puts me over the edge to "see what real people say about it after (maybe) receiving their rewards and just pay full price (which is still only around $400) if it's any good (90% chance that it won't be)." In the meantime, maybe I'll just build one of those Raspberry Pi "cinema cameras" which use a similar (or the same?) sensor. Anyway, assuming that it funds/ships, it will be the smallest shipping 4K ILC around. As almost always, I dissuade anybody from risking money on kickstarter product speculation. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/samellos/micro-mirrorless-yashica-im-back

Looking at the product pages on Metabones' site, this note is interesting: I don't know if the standard speed boosters can be powered by micro usb - I'd find that out before considering one if you have a BMCC 2.5k and want to use electronic EF lenses.

Ha! You have a point, but that was when 4K was cutting edge. Do any current Sony bodies without IBIS overheat in 4K mode? At least in the case of the R5, the heat management is a little bit improved, but also Canon just stopped doing stupid things like having a hard-coded cooldown timer instead of basing it on actual temperatures. That should probably set some sort of record for dumbest decision made in the development made in a modern camera.

I'm going to go on a limb and guess the micro 4k g2 has no IBIS. There are a lot of 4K cameras without IBIS that don't overheat. A number of people have used Z Cams in all-day shoots in similar or worse conditions and said that while other components (storage, monitor) were failing, the camera just kept ticking along (even at 6K). Once IBIS is introduced, sensor cooling gets a lot harder - it's pretty tough to attach a heat sink to a thing that is suspended by magnets. 😃

If it's CDAF, it will pretty useless for AF-C anyway. Panasonic spent years of time and tons of development hours trying to make AF-C not suck and in the end, they made it suck a little less. AF-S can be pretty great with CDAF, though. I'll have to check out the review - I'm not usually a fan of BMD's consumer/prosumer line, but I DO love tiny cameras with a good image...