eatstoomuchjam

Looks really sweet - I put in a preorder. Could be the perfect jacket-pocketable walk-around camera. The built-in ND filter makes me really happy. What features does it lack that I’d want (and that aren’t completely unreasonable)? Internal ProRes Raw over HDMI recording (at least I don’t see this on Fuji’s site) log recording(?) (not listed in the specs on Fuji’s site, guess I need to watch more reviews to see if they just aren’t mentioning it (though Eterna helps to mitigate the sadness for lacking raw)) Full-size HDMI (this one is a bit petty, though, given the camera’s size) Makes me a better photographer somehow (I keep buying cameras and my mediocre talent seems to stay completely constant!)

Since they’re using a Raspberry Pi CM4 as the base for the camera, keep in mind that it’s still possible that TC and/or audio will be over USB - it’s just that it might be a USB device that sits inside the camera where the user can never see it. I think I’ve seen some CM4 boards that offer a 3.5mm jack so audio might be onboard without needing another adapter - but for TC, it depends, I’m sure, on how long it takes to implement TC right (given how much I see sound people complaining about how poorly various cameras support it, I’d guess it’s a harder problem than it seems). 😅

FWIW, the debate about USB audio may be irrelevant - the write up on newsshooter says that they plan to add a dedicated 3.5mm ltc time code port and 3.5mm mic and headphone jacks. Overall, it looks pretty cool to me. If they really can deliver it at less than $1k, I’ll likely be a customer.

If your budget is decent, the Canon R5 is really not much larger to begin with when compared with the Sigma fp, does decent 12-bit raw internally, and has a decent flippy screen. By the time the fp is rigged to do 12-bit raw (and you add a small grip so you can actually hold the thing!), it’s already about the same size as the R5 (and still has a fixed screen). It’s one of the reasons I sold my fp and fp-l and kept my R5. Sometimes I thought about shoving the fp into a small space without a screen to get something, but then I remembered there’s no built-in wifi and by the time you add even the smallest cineeye/hollyland transmitter to it, it’s… about the same size as the R5. 😛 If the new BMMCC 4K can do monitoring over wifi to a phone and can do 12-bit raw to a really small external SSD (like a Sabrent Nano or something), it could work well for that kind of thing. If not, by the time you add an external screen (even the VL35) and small SSD, you have a kit about the size of an R5 (with worse ergonomics). (With that said, your computer’s likely to be able to edit raw from the BMMCC a lot more smoothly than from the R5 - my M2 Max is just barely tolerable with R5 stuff in Resolve) Also, I’d add in (though I haven’t used) a hacked EOS M as an option for a teeny tiny camera that can record raw internally. From what I remember, it can do some sort of 2.5k, though that might only be in a 2.35 mode or similar.

The 50mm f/1 Noctilux vignettes like crazy on full frame.

I’d go a different way entirely and say that instead of many of the things suggested above, you could spend about $4-5k and get a used C70. The only thing you’ll miss is a somewhat boxier form factor. 😉

Is there that big of a market for people that are hired by Netflix to make content and want to shoot on $2k cameras as the a cam? Their approved list is only for content they produce in-house. If you want to sell a film to Netflix, you can shoot it on anything you want - and you can shoot some percentage of footage on non-approved cameras as well.

I had backed the original E1 on Kickstarter or whatever and I kept it around for a while. I only rarely used it, though, and every time I did, I was disappointed. It was basically a Micro 4/3 sensor attached to an action camera chipset. The colors were a bit odd and the dynamic range was extremely limited - with only rudimentary tools for validation of exposure. I'd say that if you're willing to go for that sort of compromise, you might also consider something like a Sony QX1, assuming that the app still exists for it. I think Olympus pulled the app for the Air. The QX1 can only do 1080, though. If you don't need autofocus and don't care too much about sensor size, you might also consider Back Bone's modified RX0 Mark II. Then you should be able to get 4kP30 from its 1" sensor (and I think it has a decent HDMI out without insane latency, but maybe I'm wrong?) - and I think it also has a flippy screen. That'll be the smallest still-shipping 4K camera with interchangeable lenses, I think - though the price is high for what it is. Similarly, I have the Insta360 One R 1" edition modified by them with a Micro 4/3 mount - that gives a 1" 5.3k sensor. The only thing that keeps it from being one of the most fun cameras of all time is the lack of HDMI which means focusing on the little screen on the brain or using the smartphone app over wifi.

If buying a newer Mac, before buying it, load up the maximum number of things that you expect to be doing at a time and actually use the computer with all of them running for a bit. Then you can go into Activity Monitor and see how much RAM is in use. But at least that much and if possible, buy the next step up. With how fast processors are these days, there's a good chance that with the extra RAM, you will have a computer that you'll still be happily using in a few years. That and avoid the smallest SSD, as it usually has half the performance of all of the others.

I keep assuming that others have done it before, but I don't see it! On big productions with pro colorists, it's probably a waste of time, but on the sort of small productions that I work on, it feels like a cheat code - especially if the editor/colorist is using Resolve and can nearly instantly get the cameras to have a matching neutral grade to start from. 😄

Yeesh. Performance from that type of USB drive is usually terrible. Glad it worked out for you, but load time for applications must have been unpleasant. One mitigation (but not solution) for the cable problem is to use one with a right-angle connector going left or right depending on where you attach it. Velcro to the back of the screen is smart - I should probably do that (and get some right angle cables). That'd go a long way to reducing my irritation when editing from an external drive that's flopping around every time I want to get up. 😅

Are your filters coated? What you're describing sounds like what happens when you point uncoated optics at a light source. You might want to pick up a multicoated filter and see if the problem is removed or reduced.

The extra DR from the R5C vs the R5 would have to been substantial for it to match with the C70. As I said, I shot R5 and C70 on set over the weekend and the difference seems substantial to me. I have no reason to doubt that the R5C (and R5) offer benefits at ISO 3200, but thankfully I'm not lighting for that on set. In my case, the R5C also gets a 1 stop boost because I've screwed on the EF speed booster. That'll cover me most of the time. As far as matching color between them, I have a color chart taped to the back of my slate and ask the PA to flip it around after calling the shot. I just use the color chart tool in Resolve on the first or second node and other than DR and noise, I'd be hard-pressed to say which camera is which after that. They both look great. Unless the R5C changes the colors a lot, I can't imagine that it would be too hard to match to the C70 or C300II.

Which tests? Any objective test that I've been able to find shows the R5C having marginally better DR to the R5 (as you said, possibly due to better cooling or different processing), but still much lower DR than the C70 at SNR 0.5 or 1. Having just used the C70 and R5 together side-by-side on a shoot last weekend (both using raw lt), I'd say the C70 images were overall cleaner and have a lot more detail in the shadows (even aside from having less noise) - I was glad, I was a bit worried that I'd end up feeling silly having traded in a bunch of gear and some cash to get the C70. 😃 As far as the main topic of the thread, if your debate is between Z8 and R5/R5C/R3, the choice probably is going to be more emotional or based on ergonomics, ultimately. They're all very good.

If you give GFX 100 II's for Christmas presents to your spouse, I think a number of members of this forum are going to try to woo you away from your wife!

I don't. One of the nice things with using an external drive is that the cost is usually not huge. If I find myself in a place where the drive can't keep up with the footage, I'll go buy another faster drive. It's been a while since that came up, though - modern external drives are awfully fast and it's unlikely that I'd intentionally shoot anything more than 8K in the foreseeable future. As it is, just about the only reason that I shoot 8K is because the R5 doesn't have a 6K mode - that and I've been playing around a little bit with Laowa Nanomorphs with the GFX 100 II since its 8K mode crop is almost perfect for them. By the time 12K becomes mainstream, it's very possible that Thunderbolt 4 will seem antiquated. Adoption is likely to be slow since most people (me included) can barely see a difference in 4K and 8K from a reasonable viewing distance. 😄

If the camera meets your needs, it's a fantastic deal. If the camera doesn't meet your needs, even at half that price, it's a terrible deal. Will you feel good if you spend 1500 Euros on a camera that constantly feels big, bulky, and awkward in your hands and that you feel is working against you while shooting? To me, the S5IIx isn't all that big/bulky and the footage I've seen from it looked great - so if I were in the market, it'd be a great deal. If it's not for you, there's no need to agonize about it. Just wait for a camera that meets your needs better.

Welcome to the GFX 100 II club! You're gonna love the stills. Assuming you're going Fujinon for glass instead of your previous plan of PL mount, which lenses did you pair with it? For me, my go-to kit is 23/4 32-64/4 110/2 (in competition with the Leica Summicron-M 90/2 ASPH for my all-time favorite portrait lens, in the category of "if you were to buy a whole camera system just for one lens...") 250/4 1.4x TC For Turkey, I also brought the 63/2.8 (for when I wanted to be a bit more inconspicuous) and an old Minolta MD 58/1.4 for low light (it's one of the few 50ish mm vintage lenses that covers the full sensor + a bit for IBIS). There's a wide angle f/4 zoom now. If I were starting from scratch, I might choose it over the 23 prime, assuming it's as good as the 32-64.

I meant that when you purchase, you can go through a configuration tool on the Apple site and upgrade from the base option. After purchase, you can upgrade neither memory nor disk on any modern Apple laptop. This is why you want to make sure both are enough to last a while when you purchase. How high is the resolution that you need? 8K ProRes from the GFX 100 II or 8K raw from the EOS R5 both work for me. Canon R5 8K raw (maximum quality) is 2,600 megabits/second. A Samsung T9 (USB 3.something) can read at about 2,000 megabytes/second - that is to say 16,000 megabits/second. Google tells me that 12K raw from the Ursa Mini 12K is about 578 megabytes/second (5:1) - so even that should be fine from a decent external SSD... unless you need like 4 streams of it at once. If so, I suppose you'll need another solution. 😉 Even Q0 as mentioned above (missed that 578 is 5:1 when I first wrote this and hadn't seen kye's message yet) would be fine, though there you'd be limited to 1 stream before things got choppy. 😅

There's one other consideration with Mac - the smallest SSD usually has about half the performance of all of the other SSD's. The short answer is to always take at least the one above the smallest (so if the smallest is 256, go at least 512) and make sure you have enough space for whatever files you want to keep locally. If not, upgrade. Any modern high-performance external SSD (whether USB 3.x or Thunderbolt) is going to be fast enough for the vast majority of people. I went with 2TB because I like to be able to temporarily dump things to the internal drive so that I can edit on airplanes or while on a couch/in bed without having an external drive dangling from the side of the computer.

Sure, you're welcome to play with some of my tourist footage from Turkey. I refuse to pay google or other cloud providers for space (I have plenty here) so mine are all full all the time. Do you have a google drive/dropbox/whatever where you'd like me to share it? I could also share with something like Resilio if you use that.

I just traded in my Sigma FP and FP-L after coming to the conclusion that they were sitting on the shelf all the time because they didn't do anything better than several other cameras that I already have around. I used the DPL stuff with them, though, and almost never had a problem. The one problem that I did have was that one of SSD's fried, I think when I was downloading footage. I used the Sabrents and didn't realize that it's necessary to peel off the included sticker/thin heat sink for it to fit right in the DPL case. Power C set me straight when I asked about it. I kept the SSD's partly because I really like their little cases (and maybe I'll eventually buy their cage for the Video Assist which uses it). Otherwise, whether I was shooting a bunch of short clips or some longer clips, they were fine for me. YMMV, though, and use caution when voiding warranty by peeling off the factory heat sink sticker.

Mine is sitting in the next room. If what you want is relatively straightforward, I'd be glad to shoot something small. Keep in mind that the outdoors are pretty grey at this time of the year in Minnesota so "bright outdoors scene" won't be possible. If you just want any footage at all, I have some random uninteresting tourist stuff that I shot in Turkey.

First, please make sure to meet them in a safe public space. That price is bordering on "too good to be real" so please don't get mugged. Do you have some media to bring with you? Ask them to make sure the battery is charged and then you should be able to shoot some test images and a bit of video footage, and then to play it back. If you have an external screen, you may also want to bring it and the appropriate cable to make sure the HDMI port is working.

I have a few back-bone modded cameras. Usability tends to be a bit of a challenge. When they say they have the best luck with HDMI, I believe them completely. The cameras that I have are... Yi 4K+ - borderline unusable. No HDMI output, fairly high latency over wifi, minimal or no ability to punch in on internal screen. Can be OK if you can lock focus in a spot and leave it there (like for mounting on a car). C/CS mount w/ 1/2.3" sensor. Hero 7 - More usable than Yi, still really hard to use. HDMI output has insane lag. Wifi tolerable, can punch in on internal screen in photo mode (and maybe in a limited fashion in video? It's been a bit). C/CS mount w/ 1/2.3" sensor Insta360 One R 1" edition - My "gold standard" - No HDMI output available, wifi lag acceptable, double tap on internal screen to punch in makes it the easiest of the bunch to focus. Passive Micro 4/3 mount w/ 1" sensor. I wish the One R could do wired preview to an iPhone, but at least mine only seems to have an option for wired Android connection (maybe the One RS body improves that? I should double-check whether I have one). If it could do wired preview with low latency, it would be completely usable (though with poor dynamic range). Anyway, I keep an EF adapter on my One R and occasionally mount it to the back of a telephoto lens to turn it into a super telephoto (5.7k 1" sensor + EF 100-400L = 1080mm lens - add 1.4x teleconverter for 1500mm - with some ability to crop in since the source image is already 5.7k). So the best answers for "why do this?" 1) 1/2.3" sensor works with tiny C mount (and even some D mount) lenses. "That bulk and weight" is less than just about any S35 camera. 2) 1" sensor = 2.7x crop vs FF, give or take - 1/2.3" sensor = 5.6x crop factor vs FF. Want a thing that's about 1/3 the size of your other camera body and you can easily mount it to your long telephoto lens to get some extra reach? 3) It's fun. All things considered, if the RX0 has a low-latency HDMI output, it might actually be the best option (still) for a Back-Bone camera - it has a "big" sensor and one can use focus tools on the external screen.