Jahleh

Been using this a bit already and you can drop decode quality in Raw tab from Full to half or quarter. The viewer quality is then quite bad, but works enough for being able to sync audio. Caching or exporting to Prores422HQ also helps with Magic masks. I had just almost forgotten how easy H.265 4:2:0 is for M chips. But S1Rii 8.1k and 6.4k being only max 30p using speed warp in Resolve is at least as heavy as NR.

S5ii had improvements over orig S5, but lower level of details with oversharpening was annoying, even with 6k VLog and also with a LUT burnt in. It was especially noticeable on extracted stills when viewed from a big screen. If you check Connor McCaskill’s latest S1Rii Youtube clip, he has a download link to his footage. Had a play on resolve, and damn, S1Rii IQ looks definitely better and different than what came from S5ii sensor. Grades pretty effortlessly too. The only downside with Z6iii NRaw along the big file sizes is the NR. Don’t know if the full M4 Max chip is enough to play the timeline in real time with NR, and it is expensive. Have a PC with 5800x CPU and RTX 3080 GPU too and editing is more stuttery with it than with M3 Pro Macbook. The latest Nvidia 5xxx GPUs have 4:2:2 support now, but they are not cheap either, and I prefer the ease of using macOS. A new camera usually means you need to get a new computer for editing too, but with S1Rii that does not seem to be the case. Even M1 Pro would be fine

I wonder wasn’t that only with ISO’s below 800, so with NLog it’s not that big of an issue. High zebras at 255, expose just before highlights clip, bring it down in post and you have much cleaner shadows. if noise with NRaw is the problem use NR or shoot H.265 with NR baked in.

Thanks! Pretty much the same feeling I had when watching the video from LG OLED. I’ve shot and graded VLog for 4 years now, and last year or two to HDR in Resolve, just for fun, but never got VLog look quite as good as NRaw or NLog. VLog may have more DR but somehow it does not grade as nicely with my grading skills. With NRaw mild NR can save slightly under exposed shots, but you get flickering if shadows are raised too much. Vlog has noise too, and S5ii footage can’t be pushed as much as original S5 could. Definitely have to check Jimmy Chin’s Nikon footage.

More Nikon fuel to the fire. In case you are interested how S5ii, GH6, GH7 and Z6iii look on one timeline, here’s a video from footage we shot last year. About first 2/3rd of the video is shot with S5ii and GH6, and the rest with Z6iii and GH7. Edited and color corrected in Resolve UHD 2020 ST.2084 (PQ) 1,000 nit timeline on a M3 Macbook Pro with P3 ST 2084 display preset. Exported to H.265 80Mbps with HDR10+ metadata embedded. Resolve color space transform: GH6, GH7, S5ii: input color space Panasonic Vlog or with Lumasweet LUTs Z6iii: Color space transform from Rec2020 NLog to Rec2020 ST.2084 Camera codecs and resolutions: GH6 and GH7: 5.8k25p open gate, 5.7k50p and 4k100p S5ii: 6k25p open gate, also with Sirui Saturn 1.6x in 2.40:1 AR, 4k50p Z6iii: 6k50p and 4k100p NRaw, 5.4k50p and 4k100p H.265 NLog Lenses: GH6: Olympus 75mm F1.8, 25mm F1.8, 20mm F2 GH7: same than GH6 and Nocticron 42.5mm F1.2 S5ii: S Pro 50mm F1.4, 100mm F2.8, Sigma 35mm F2, Sirui Saturn 1.6x 75mm T2.9 Z6iii: S 50mm F1.2, 85mm F1.8, 40mm F2 The video is shot in various lighting conditions on different locations through the 4 seasons, while S5ii IBIS, AF and Estabilization firmware updates were also tested when they were released. AF was used on some of the clips with S5ii and GH7 and almost on all clips with Z6iii. And last, it’s mainly a bouldering video. In bouldering you try to climb up a specific spot of rock. The more difficult the boulder is for you the more you have to try and fail, until you may succeed. As a bonus you get to enjoy nature, what views and joys it has to offer, and capture those memories too.

Thought also 75mm handheld could be pushing it. With heavier 1,3kg Sirui Venus 1.6x panning would have probably been fine, but I did not want another big and heavy lens to carry along with my S Pro 50 F1.4. Could be the Sirui copy I had was not perfect, as it was sometimes hard to nail the focus even on a tripod through the S5II EVF. Cam’s footage looked absolutely gorgeus, like in his Ronin 4d 8k review. The same with Media Division. Nice to see what S1RII is capable of in the hands of Pros with good optics. S1RII’s 5.76M dot EVF should also help focusing compared to S5II’s 3.78M dot EVF, but they both are 0.78x and not 0.8x like in GH7 and Z6iii. There’s always compromises. Z6iii does not have the desqueeze at all and it’s IBIS is what it is compared to Panasonic. And with NRaw you need NR more often than you’d like. I think I will wait at least 3 months to see if they announce another camera, and to see what actual buyers think about the S1RII and it’s IQ.

Panasonic’s anamorphic support is really great with good IBIS. Still, at least with S5ii RS was pretty noticeable with 75mm Sirui Saturn 1.6x 400 gram lens. Also S5ii had only 1.5x desqueeze so focusing was a bit pain with 1.6x lens, and some times nothing was really sharply in focus. If I was to use S1Rii with anamorphic lens I would get a heavier lens with the desqueeze ratio what the camera supports, or try those AF anamorphics.

I forgot to mention that I of course traded in her GH6 to compensate the cost of my Z6iii😆 Damn, this S1RII feels kind of tempting, but after checking a few reviews it is not that clear what is actually improved and what is worse than in S5II. It seems like 6k version of S1RII would be better for video, and I already have the Z6iii, and Nikkor 35 F1.4, 40 F2, 50 F1.2 and 85 F1.8. And it depens if even Z8 is worth the upgrade to me. Most likely will update next the Macbook, as even with 6k footage it seems you need more unified RAM than 18GB in Resolve, if you want to avoid swapping.

Ever since my wife got GH6 I wanted 4k100p and 6k50p for Full Frame. After trying GH7 I bought her as a present I could have settled to that too, but could not quite accept it being marginally worse in low light than S5ii. I also wanted to try Raw, so Z6iii seemed like a perfect choise. GH7’s Prores RawHQ was also nice but at 3,5Gbps too heavy to store. Bought the Z6iii and compared it to S5ii and then traded in the rest of my Lumix kit for Nikkor 50mm F1.2. The 6k50p NRaw is IQ wise closer what I wanted. Though, with Noise reduction NRaw is just as heavy to edit than having a speed warp on S5ii 6k25p😆 Also with 6k even on 4k timeline having only 16-18GB of RAM will lead to swapping on M3 Pro Macbook. Still, Z6iii EVF is much better than what S5ii has, but IBIS is a bit worse. S5ii has slightly better DR, but in low light I’ve gotten better footage out of Z6iii.

All footage we've shot was with Vlog on GH6, GH7 and S5ii. I did not even try the Cined color profiles after reading they were even worse. The best way to describe the problem is that with original S5 you kind of wondered whether you needed to add a tad of sharpening even though footage looked perfectly ok already in Resolve. With S5ii it was like, damn that is maybe too sharp. We shoot mostly climbing, so there is a lot of rock in most of the clips we take, and too sharp rock surface makes the frame look busy fast. If I get the video finally edited I might share the link here as half of it is shot with GH6, GH7 and S5ii with many spherical lenses and one anamorphic lens, and the rest is shot with Z6iii. Though, looking a climbing video even from IQ perspective might be a bit boring if you are not a climber. 😅 Here is a frame grab from Z6iii 6k50p NRaw, one GH7 5.7k50p frame, one S5ii 6k25p open gate macro frame and another S5ii 4k50p frame. The frames are only around 3000 × 1500 to keep file sizes small.

After checking last year's 1.5TB of footage from 60 shooting days or so, and editing it to a 15min HDR video, the IQ from GH6 and GH7 seems to be a bit better, i.e. calmer, compared to S5ii IMO, as over sharpening is not visible on M43. 6k open gate on S5ii can too look calm and good on some occasions, and it has the DR advantage on low light. Fingers crossed this S1Rii has both the IQ and even better DR, and I might swap back to L mount from Z6iii

With S5ii RS was a easily noticeable with light anamorphic and macro lenses. Had a 400 gram Sirui Saturn 1.6x 75mm T2.9 and even though IBIS was great, even a little bit of panning introduced RS with 6k open gate. With 4k there was less RS but it did not look as great. The Panasonic 100mm F2.8 had also RS, but it was nice that you could even try macro handheld. This new S1Rii sounds now very promising, if it does not have the same over sharpening than S5ii has.

In case you are wondering how Z6 III behaves in low light I made this short clip where I tested the camera and some of it’s functions. No plot, just random B-roll clips taken between climbing, before or after sunset, during September and October, including labels which clip is N-RAW and which just N-Log. There’s even one S5ii V-Log clip for comparison. Darkest clips are taken with ISO 6400 and 12800 on Nikkor 85mm F1.8 or 50mm F1.2. Just mute the sound as it’s mostly sea waves splashing near a highway.

Could be it is unique to the Z6 III as pretty much every fellow on every forum or on Youtube I searched, even the fellow whose video is linked at the start of this thread, said the same thing that View Assist with N-Log cannot be trusted. Would be really nice to get it fixed on Z6 III too. I have used only 4K 100fps, as I edit on 25fps timeline, and with 100fps AF has worked as well as with 6K 50fps. Even in the dark, subject lit with dim flashlight the AF could stick to the subject quite dependably. At the edge of the frame AF would not lock on the subject if it was really dark and subject not moving, but when it got the lock it stuck to the subject. Compared to S5ii even after it's latest firmware update, this Z6 III AF seems to be a bit stickier, more trustworthy and it will not loose the subject as easily as S5ii did, especially if someone walked between the camera and the subject. The estabiliser is maybe not quite as good as in S5ii, and stabiliser itself in normal or VR mode is not that good as in S5ii or in GH7. The estabiliser works only with H.265 UHD up to 60fps, so I have not used it much, only tested how it behaves. The VR mode is ok for my use and mostly I get good results with it. With longer focal lengths having heavier lens helps of course too, like it was with the S5ii. IMO with Z6 III and NRAW you get a FF 6K 60fps and APSC 4K 120fps, bit better IQ, AF, EVF and can use higher ISO values than with S5ii. I like the switch to photo mode too in Z6 III more than having custom modes on S5ii. S5ii seems to have a bit more DR, has better IBIS, open gate and some functions are better implemented. Tried even Sirui Saturn 75mm 1.6x anamorphic with it and it was good, but only on a tripod. Now with Z6 III I got the more resolving and calmer IQ I wanted, but lost a couple of other things.

The N-LOG view assist is complete mess, it over exposes by 2/3 or 1 stop. If exposure looks good in the EVF with view assist you get under exposed footage and lot's of noise. I just disable the view assist and use wave form and zebras their highlight threshold at 245 to check nothing is clipping and then bring down the exposure in Resolve. With Panasonic you could always trust what you see via the EVF with their view assist LUT and use wave form to double check you are not under exposing or clipping the highlights. Panasonic's wave form is also clearer to read and understand. Just hope Nikon would update the view assist LUT via firmware at least. It is just hilarious that the EVF is very good, but you can't use it fully. I have not tried N-RAW HIGH yet as FX 6048×3402 50p HIGH is 3110 Mbps and NORMAL only 1560 Mbps. 6K25p HIGH seems to be also only 1560Mbps so I definitely need to check it out if it has any benefits. FX 6048×3402 24p HIGH is approx. 1490 Mbps and NORMAL 750 Mbps according to Z6iii Technical Guide. There is FX 4032×2268 N-RAW modes with lower bitrates than 6K as well, but they seem to be a bit softer than 6K, so for 4K N-RAW I have only used DX 3984×2240 100p. I usually shoot sports with FX 6K50p and DX 4K100p N-RAW, or 5.4K50p and UHD100p H.265 modes and have tried only briefly H.265 UHD 50p with eStab to check how it works.