eatstoomuchjam

In some ways, this already exists - Atomos are charging to upgrade to AtomOS 11 on older devices. Some vendors have also included paid firmware features (Panasonic with V-log on the GH5 or ProRes on the S5 II). In an ideal world, paid firmware upgrades would incentivize manufacturers to actually invest in them, especially for somewhat older but still popular cameras. In the real world, they would also do it for cameras that are still on the market and try to extract money from existing users even though new users would just get it as part of their purchase (even if the camera ships with older firmware on it (since no stores gonna open all the boxes to update firmware), they usually need to grant the new firmware to prevent RMA count from increasing as people send back devices with outdated firmware). Anyway. I don't like it, but it's where the world is going these days, sadly.

I, for one, can say that I enjoy having internal raw available (even if I don't always use it) and that I have little or no use for 8kp120. I'd also say "Nikon won't enforce their new patent" and "they'll probably license it" are completely incompatible statements. If they don't enforce it, other companies would be stupid to pay for a license. Even if Nikon fought to invalidate the patent in the past, now that they own it, there's a decent chance that their opinions on the validity of the patent have evolved.

I'm not sure if it was brought up before in this thread, but apparently Yaroslav got some new old stock of the Z Cam E1. https://www.soltyscameras.com/product-page/z-cam-e1 I really didn't like mine at all when I had it (and I was so pleasantly surprised by the E2), but as far as I know, it is still the smallest 4K ILC camera ever produced. If you do get, avoid the log profile.

The "X" vignette is basically inherent to variable ND filters - those that don't have it just have a hard stop before it becomes visible. I'd also say that in the real world, having accurate full stop measurements is not that important if you're shooting digital. You have plenty of tools available to dial in your exposure. Plus, in the real world, light rarely perfectly aligns to full stops anyway.

Even if file sizes were totally the same, not every project needs or wants raw. If you need any sort of fast turnaround, a raw workflow is usually incompatible with it. It's great to have options, though! Anybody who has had anything more than a superficial interaction with Atomos will be thrilled to never do any business with them again. With or without Young, they are are garbage company.

I'll be curious about the autofocus. AF is not so important when making cameras with small sensors and fairly wide-angle integrated lenses, but with a big sensor (comparatively) and the potential for fast lenses, it becomes a big deal (at least with a camera that is marketed to be for people who want to record themselves for streaming). If the price is fairly low, pairing it with something like the Olympus 75/1.8 could be kind of great for Zoom calls, etc. If the price isn't low, it won't make a lot of sense, given that one can get any number of APS-C and FF cameras with really decent PDAF/DPAF that support webcam protocols.

It's also a great time to remember to focus on lens portability instead of buying the latest shiny mirrorless lenses. If you use EF lenses, for example, they autofocus well (with PDAF even!) on Fuji, Canon, and Nikon cameras (with the right adapters) (and sort of on Sony, but there are a bunch of asterisks there). Then if you value raw and Nikon decide to prevent everybody else from using it, you can just switch over to their system. Shooting on Red and Nikon switch it to use Z mount? Buy a new adapter and keep rolling. Bonus: EF lenses are plentiful on the used market and you can put together a nice shooting set for a lot less than with the latest mirrorless versions (and almost nobody watching your film is going to care about the quality difference compared with the latest stuff). "What the hell? This film isn't perfectly sharp all the way to the corners? What, did they shoot this on EF LENSES??? I want my money back!"

Fair point. There could be an asterisk on "a bunch of"

My guess is that the core RED stuff will remain largely unchanged for a time. It'd be hard for any business not to love those margins. I think the writing's been on the wall for a little while now, though, that aside from patent IP, RED's time as a viable company is limited. Competition from cameras that cost 1/4 of their prices gets stiffer every year. Otherwise, as others have said, I'd guess that Nikon will now roll out compressed raw to a bunch of their bodies and as soon as they can, end Canon's ability to add compressed raw to any new bodies (is it too late for the R5 II?). Guess I'll start paying more attention to Nikon now...

There’s nothing wrong with wanting longer record times - it’s too bad Fuji didn’t include a socket for the fan that works with the xh2s and the gfx100 II (both of which, ironically, don’t really seem to be prone to overheating). It’s totally valid to say that you record long clips and that a camera which overheats after 10 minutes isn’t for you and it’s equally valid to feel disappointment that a newer camera doesn’t include all of the features and upgrades that you hoped for. Luckily we live in a time when there are lots of fantastic cameras on the market and you can choose one that fits your preferences/needs (like your Ricoh)! 😄

Whenever anybody starts thumping their chest about how good they are at manual focus, I tend to just assume that they’ve never worked with any combination of fast lenses and human talent - that or maybe they’ve never had to explain to the director why that take was unusable because the actor committed the cardinal sin of moving their head an inch…. Or that they’ve never actually tried to be a solo operator for a multi-camera shoot. There are times when manual focus is an art and can be used for excellent expression. There are also times when the only “art” is keeping the talents’ eyes in focus and these days, the machine is much better at that than most humans. I wouldn’t usually shoot an 85/1.2 wide open, but on the occasions when I want to do that, I’d either have to put the talents’ head in a vice or let the machine focus for me.

For me, a 10-minute recording limit is absolutely fine for a pocket camera and 40 megapixels + 6k video offer a really nice upgrade over just using my iPhone. If you want to shoot documentaries/interviews/etc, it’s probably not the best choice. I’d just use other cameras for that (and maybe whip out this camera for BTS or similar). As far as whether the newer Sony bodies would fit in a jacket pocket, I’m guessing they would - but the A6700 (specifically) is only 24 megapixels, has Sony UX and colors, and has no internal ND. I shot Sony for a number of years when they were the only ones making viable full frame mirrorless, but I never really got to a point where they were any sort of a joy to use - it always just felt like using a hammer (a hammer with cruddy menus at that - though I’m told they’re somewhat better now). I still have my old ZV-1 (and maybe an RX100V?) - and one of the reasons I never really considered any of the newer models is that Sony got rid of the internal ND. For a pocket/carry-around video camera, internal ND is pretty huge. (And I’m glad it has f-log!)

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.