Nikon Zr is coming

[eatstoomuchjam]

13 minutes ago, Ilkka Nissila said:

The hand grip of the Z6 III is not just a grip, it houses the battery which is in a different orientation in the ZR

I understand that the grip of the Z6 III holds the battery.  Judging by pictures, it also holds the memory cards - which includes a UHS-2 full-size SD card instead of a UHS-1 micro-SD card like the ZR has.  Oh, and you can also change the cards while the camera is on a tripod or gimbal.

13 minutes ago, Ilkka Nissila said:

EVF use on mirrorless cameras is often not practical as it's fundamentally incompatible with gimbal use,

I had no idea that mirrorless cameras couldn't be used without a gimbal.  That's quite a limitation. Without being aware of it, I've been using mine mostly without a gimbal for a while now.

14 minutes ago, Ilkka Nissila said:

many shotgun mics like the MKE 600 would not make it possible for me to use a viewfinder.

You know the microphone is supposed to point toward the front of the camera and not the back, right?  That should reduce the risk of poking out your eye with it when holding up the EVF.   😉

Anyway, the Z6 III has a screen that is still pretty decent-sized at 3.2".

15 minutes ago, Ilkka Nissila said:

Why is the size of the LCD important? I want to clearly see what I am shooting without touching the camera (potentially shaking it).

From your description, it sounds like your needs could be better met by using a Black Magic Cinema Camera 6K instead of a Nikon ZR.  The BMCC has a bigger rear screen at 5".  The EVF is optional so you won't need to use it if you don't want to.  While L mount isn't quite as versatile as Z mount, it's still quite good.  The BMCC6K also has 2 mini-XLR mic inputs which can be used along with the internal mics for 4-channel audio.  If you want smaller files, you can increase the compression ratio for BM raw.  Even at the maximum compression on the UC12K (12:1, I think?), it still looks very good.  I usually use the Ursa at 8:1 except for VFX shots where I go up to 5:1.

The main limitation against the ZR is that the BMCC is a bit bigger and heavier.  But as a person who wants "the best back LCD I can have," the BMCC blows the ZR and its puny 4" screen out of the water.  You'll also get a full-size HDMI port and not a garbage micro-HDMI port in case you want to connect to an even bigger 7" screen.

[Jahleh]

Having detachable EVF as good as Z6iii has would be even better than having only the ZR display. Still the 4” display is joy to use, and regular 3” or 3.2” LCD’s  feel quite tiny after using ZR.

The main problem is still the lack of saving trimmed R3D NE files as R3D NE. If you shoot from sticks and put the camera far away you end up getting a lot of unwanted data you can’t get rid of. Unless you save the R3D NE trims to H.265. Shame on Nikon and RED as NRaw works fine.

Luckily you can use Parallax monitor app to control the ZR, Z6iii, Z8 and it has pretty good exposure tools too, false color, red traffic lights, scopes, zebras, and even focus peaking with LUT, frame guides, desqueeze, just to name a few of the features.

ZR could be so much better if saving R3D NE trim was fixed. The file size itself is not that big of an issue itself. After shooting almost two hundred days with ZR the R3D NE looks a bit better and needs less grading than NRaw, especially in low light.

[MrSMW]

10 hours ago, eatstoomuchjam said:

The BMCC has a bigger rear screen at 5"

I dream of having a tool of this magnitude.

Being serious, as someone who really does not want to rig out his cameras as after all, I am a hybrid shooter, the larger, clearer and brighter the rear LCD is, the better because I shoot exclusively with the things.

It’s also why I prefer a tilt over a flip out.

Fully articulated works better for me for the stills side, but tilt for video.

Hopefully all cameras in the future will increasingly work on having these physical features which probably benefit more folks than massive pixel counts or bloated codecs.

10 hours ago, Jahleh said:

ZR could be so much better if saving R3D NE trim was fixed. The file size itself is not that big of an issue itself. After shooting almost two hundred days with ZR the R3D NE looks a bit better and needs less grading than NRaw, especially in low light

Less grading is financial boon to the small business as time saved is time that can be put to use elsewhere, or increase profitability.

That is what draws me to the Red codec, but as things stand, that storage costs defeats any savings for me, but the grading time is a draw…

[eatstoomuchjam]

6 hours ago, MrSMW said:

Being serious, as someone who really does not want to rig out his cameras as after all, I am a hybrid shooter, the larger, clearer and brighter the rear LCD is, the better because I shoot exclusively with the things.

Yeah, a big screen is nicer.  No doubt about it.  It just wouldn't be, for me, the main selling point of one camera vs another.

That said, you are already in L mount and I've heard that the recently-released autofocus on the BMCC is quite good...