Jahleh

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.

Been following this excellent website and forum since I got Canon 550D in 2010. Ended two months ago to Z6iii after using GH3, GH4, GH5, S5, S5ii and have shot also a bit with GH6 and GH7. If viewed from 3 meter wide screen with true 4K HDR projector, there is a slight difference in resolution and colors in 6K NRAW vs 5.4K H.265 in my opinion. The 6K NRAW seems to be a bit sharper, but not over sharp, and colors feel a tad richer. For example, during the sunsets NRAW seems to have nicer hues to my eye, but it could be my Resolve skills are still just lacking for correcting H.265 NLog white balance. Correcting NRAW WB is just easier. Z6iii 6K50p NRAW in normal quality is 11.7GB per minute vs 3GB for 5.4K50p H.265. The Z6iii NRAW is noisy and it flickers if you under expose. Still, by over exposing a stop or two according to the wave form and zebras ISO 12800 seems usable. The slight amount of noise looks more organic to my eye on the big screen than noise in H.265 Still, if S5ii did not have that slight over sharpening compared to original S5 IQ, and it had 6K50p mode, it’s H.265 at 1.5GB or even 3GB per minute would be perfect.