ghostwind

As a hard core fan of cycling racing for many years, I'm quite lukewarm over this, don't really care. If you somehow believe Lance Armstrong doesn't deserve the wins, then who does? 2nd place? No. 3rd place? No. 2nd place? No. 4th place? No. 5th place? No. 6th place? No. etc etc etc 
It indisputable that USA Postal during that era was the king at the sport of cycling (well, at least the #1 when it came to TdF wins, which to the casual external viewer is all that seems to matter. Even though the sport of cycling is so so so much more). Just like Red Bull is right now for F1. 
 

At least Nikon gets recognized as part of the "Canikon duopoly" (although in the mature mirrorless era, Sony has broken that duopoly). 
But I agree, it seems Nikon got seen as the forgotten poorer stepchild in that duopoly. 
Even though Nikon has produced so very many ground breaking / top tier stills cameras themselves, such as the Nikon D700 / D3 / D800 / D750 / D500 / etc 
 
Good point. Nikon has got a bit of an old fuddy duddy branding of stereotype cameraman photographers. So maybe a little bit of the bold brash youthful branding of RED mixed in could be "a good thing"? 

...and photography, though most appreciate the latter.
There's been quite a bit of negativity and still is out there in some quarters, re. Nikon as a brand.
Fair enough, in the earlier days of mirrorless, they were not quite the co-leading player as they were with Canon in the former DSLR days.
When I started shooting weddings 20+ years ago, it was Nikon or Canon with Canon taking around 2/3rds of the sales.
Today it's; Nikon, Canon, Sony, Fuji and Panasonic with Sony being the biggest based on pure sales and probably also on image/marketing with the younger end of the market.
Nikon along with Panasonic, seems to have developed a slightly fuddy duddy image which I think is a bit undeserved and I think it's because they haven't approached their marketing in quite the same way as say Sony or even Fuji.
Fuji obviously went down the nostalgic route with some of their designs and film sim approach and Sony the 'YouTube Gen' and Canon seems to bob along based on legacy as does Leica.
But not so old Panny Boy and Nikon have suffered I think by being less active than some others despite having some exceptional products.
The S1H and S5ii, my own personal weapons of choice in the hybrid video arena are amongst the best available.
Nikon produced the Z6ii which is right up there still in its class, the Z8, the Z9 and most recently the Zf, all exceptional top of their class acts. 
RED for me as a brand though, is a bit mixed... I think it is a bit of it's time... As someone said above, a few years back it was all RED MEGA GODZILLA XXX and had a certain appeal to a certain market, but that's not any kind of widespread appeal or dare I say, very mature.
So I think a toned down, more youthful, more left field, side brand, could be good for Nikon on one side of this acquisition and on the other side, whatever the tech is that they can utilise.
It should be interesting for sure.
But if they are going to make any camera with a red body, they need to make sure it's a matte red, not a gloss one.
 

With today's news, I feel like I made the right choice going with the Z9s, not just for now, but for the future. 

Why? You planning a moon mission?
Just trolling 😉

Jesus Christ these youtubers are insufferable! The thing hasn't even come out yet but it already destroyed stuff? Gets a click I guess. 

There's a difference between ignoring it and obsessing about it like in this thread and in the news in general. Too much obsessing about the unknown is a waste of time. Be open about it, changes, educate yourself, but no need to panic and put things "on hold" because the "AI" monster is coming.
As an example, I read some folks talking about leaving this field and going into IT, and I found that a bit ironic, as a lot of those jobs will be automated pretty fast. To me that's panic, not rational thinking.

Yes I see that, but I can also see these types of jobs only being viable long enough until AI makes another leap and renders them obsolete. Pretty much a race to the bottom where the jobs that are paying/viable have little to do with being creative.

Is it ironic tho - or is it a sign of the sheer scale of changes coming to the labor market. But also, when you've got a mortgage and bills to pay at the end of the month - you tend to panic about tech advances like this. Some aren't experiencing this chewing the fat on a forum - I'm watching colleagues in the media world losing their jobs weekly. 

We hope it happens on page 24.

We hope it happens on page 24.

We hope it happens on page 24.

We hope it happens on page 24.

22 pages on...  and nothing has been learned.

I think it's mainly tradition and what people are used to. Kind of like asking why more people like red than blue or why some people prefer LP sound.

Fascinating. 
 
Super wealthy hobbyists who make fancy home movies think 24p doesn’t look like cinema having never actually made anything with actors or working with a crew and using their family as their evidence of audience approval.  
Little to no understanding of the difference between acquisition frame rate and distribution or display refresh rate in multiple environments or global territories but still drawing conclusions. 
 
So many experts one one place. How lucky we all are. 
 
 

It's downsampled in camera from 5.4k.

Aputure is great, but also look into Godox or Small Rig if you want to save a little bit of money. I have a Small Rig kit I put together that is holding up pretty well, though there are a couple things I wish they'd done to make them better, namely a little better construction and putting glass over the LED chip so I could use it outside without worrying about bugs. Still a pretty good value given I got them on sale.
Adorama's Glow EZ soft boxes are also a great value and easy to set up. 

I'm a career DP/videographer mostly working in the commercial/corporate space and this is my current kit:
2x Nanlite FS300B lights Two cheap "Travor/Fositan" bicolor 1x1 flex lights 2x Nanlite Pavotube 6Cii 36in and 48in parabolic diffusors + one fresnel I also have a round LED/lantern kit for travel, similar to this kit.
This setup has done very well for me and I have rarely had to rent anything else. It's also important to me that my entire kit for a shoot can fit onto my cart. If more is needed, then I'm going to need to work with a gaffer.
However, if I were starting over from scratch, I would probably get:
Aputure 300x Aputure Amaran F22c Aputure LS 60x with Spotlight Mini Zoom Parabolic diffusors & large 5-in-1 reflectors This would be a very versatile kit that would cover most situations that I could think of. Nanlite also offers comparable lights at even better prices, but they currently don't have anything quite like the F22c. Godox offerings look good. Two years ago when I last updated my kit, I took a long, hard look at them and concluded that their big COB lights had a magenta hue that I did not care for. The B&H house brand GVM lights also look great for the money, but I've never used them.
One other consideration: when shopping for COB lights, it's important to get a sense of how far they can be dimmed down. For instance, my buddy's Aputure 600c lights are great but even at 0.01%, they are too bright for some applications. This is the reason that I've stuck with 300w fixtures, and shooting at my camera's native ISO of 800, I've very rarely encountered any interior shot when I've wanted more light than what I can get from a 300w fixture.

I wouldnt highten one skill on the expense of another. I wouldn´t label a certain skill set as nostalgic just because off the point in time it was working wonders. But then you know about your art and skills of DJing and can put it into context, which both I am unable to. Getting things right in camera is not about story but about the ooc image.

I think the idea of nailing it in-camera is in and of itself not that big of a deal nowadays - if you have a basic color workflow and most importantly, know how to really nail the story you're trying to tell.
That statement isn't meant to dismiss the importance of nailing it in-camera - but to say that imo nailing it in-camera has always been less about hitting a fixed target dead on - and more about a ballpark. And that ballpark is so much easier to hit thanks to the aggregated knowledge base of spaces like this, and of course YouTube. To the point where asking someone with experience for assistance is usually not as prudent as simply typing the question in YouTube's search engine! But that ball park around the target of perfection is also much wider than ever before, thanks to the corrective tools we now have within Resolve, Premiere Pro, Finalcut, etc. Not to mention basic in-the -field tools like a color chart and/or Sekonic C-700 or C-800.
I was a deejay for most of my life, and I still pride myself on knowing the basic theories of bar-counting and melody-matching and taking the time to know the unique bar construction of every single song I was gna play, so that when I hit the party and got on the 1200s, my 'in-camera' settings were pretty good. But then Serato came along with other recent mind-blowing advances - and now in 2023, a deejay simply does not need to have/understand those 'in-camera' settings. 
Is it something deejays like myself lament? 100%!!! But the REAL deejays of those past generations also understand that the actual mission, first and foremost, was always: to tell a great story.
So while there are deejays I know and admire, who still love to do 'all-vinyl' parties as a way to exercise/show-off the skills they HAD TO developed in the past, as a means to the ends of telling great stories, again, the REAL ones within that cohort also understand they are doing those parties for the sake of nostalgia, which is also very important and life affirming.
All that to say, hopefully when we are in passionate pursuit of getting it right in-camera (as I am myself, to a degree) we aren't losing sight of the more important plot of getting the story right in our minds - which is a whole other skill that still demands that we strive to master it at the highest of levels.
 

Awful in my line of work as any change/changes mid scene is near impossible to overcome in post. Just a headache.
But otherwise yes, fixed WB of ‘5500’ works nicely and is my go to (not 5600) as it’s the recommendation for the conversion LUT I use.
I also meant 4500 indoors not 4000, so 4500 and 5500 are my two programmed default options.

Do you know what else is outdated? Manual focus. It's so slow, man, it drives me nuts! This is 2023, not 1923! My iPhone can focus faster than any ALEXA, so what's up with that? Autofocus is true cinema and anyone telling you otherwise is just trying to keep their job as a focus puller or living in the past. Engineers are with me, let's go!
 

I'm finishing up my transition from 7-year-old Canon DSLRs and lenses to the Nikon Z9 bodies, lenses, etc., and I should be done by 2024, so yeah, 2024 will be a "no-gear year" for me as well, unless I forgot some small items. Also, it's a good thing for business tax purposes to get it done by EOY.

Do you know what else is outdated? Manual focus. It's so slow, man, it drives me nuts! This is 2023, not 1923! My iPhone can focus faster than any ALEXA, so what's up with that? Autofocus is true cinema and anyone telling you otherwise is just trying to keep their job as a focus puller or living in the past. Engineers are with me, let's go!