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Moved to ‘sitting on the fence’. I’m less interested in a pure ciné camera and more interested in a video centric hybrid. The final spec vs cost vs Panasonic S5 will decide for me. And yes I know the humble S5 is not it’s competitor but it’s the camera that currently ticks more of my boxes than anything else. Second place is joint Fuji XT4 and Sony A7Siii with Fuji losing points due to lack of lenses that suit my needs and Sony on being ‘only’ 12mp and price. We are still at least one single component away from my ideal spec, my S5 in two areas: video tracking AF and no internal ND or at least drop in filter. The FX3 is certainly shaping up to be less of a contender than it was a week ago when it was heading for near dead cert territory. The lack of any form of ND, internal or drop in is the biggest disappointment. If the speculation/rumors are true...

I am testing the FX6 soon to see if its color and IQ are closer to C300/C70 than FS5II/A7sII before making any decisions (because if it still feels like old Sony image, I'm out). But this camera still excites me as the ideal B-Cam to something like the FX6 or FX9. Every other cinema camera lacks a true, compact, mirrorless-like b-camera (same mount, some color, same codecs, same sensor size, same lenses, etc). I would get WAY more excited if it has: timecode, a 3.5mm input on the body, S-Cinetone, and touchscreen AF. Those features plus all of the new Sigma lenses, the move to full-frame cinema, Zeiss Loxia line (which I loved), all make the E-Mount a very exciting possibility. BUT, all the specs, bells, and whistles don't mean much if I'll be wishing I had my old Canon image a year later.

I'd like to say the same, but I filmed and live streamed one Wedding Ceremony last year totally for free. It was my own. 🤣🤣🤣 I setup 3 cameras, Pocket4K, GH5s at the front, on closeup and wide and a GH5 at the back. Plus attached a small camera for live streaming to Facebook for my wife's family in Turkey to see, plus UK friends and family as we were limited to 12 guests. This wasn't easy to set up as the registrar kept wanting to interview me for their bit of legal nonsense. I was fiddling with streaming settings on my phone and she politely asked me to put my phone down. Thankfully I got the streaming running just in the nick of time before my soon to be wife walked in. Before the Ceremony finished, I had to replace the card in the Pocket 4K as I had set it to HQ in the rush. I got looks from everyone including my now wife, but I just said cheekily, "hey, you're marrying a Wedding Videographer, what do you expect". 😁😁

I've been shooting weddings for 20 years now. 21 technically, but last year doesn't really count with 1/25, but... For the last 10 years or so, in hybrid format. Initially more like 100% photography + 10% video for the first year. Then 100% photo + 20% video the second. 100% photo + 30% video the third. You get the picture... Each year, I have played with different kit and at one point I was operating 7 cameras on my own. Madness! After the above, I had a word with myself and went back to the less is more approach with only one blip in 2019 when I bought a pair of DJI Pockets but that only confirmed that less is more and sold them. I replaced both with the DJI Action, but I then found myself using it for the sake of using it because I felt I had to so sold that. I'm now fixed on just 2 bodies, 2 zooms and a couple of primes to do everything plus my Sony ZV1 as a general backup piece of kit in my bag other than for ceremony & speeches where it will be rolling at a different angle, never intending to be used, but providing a worst case scenario safety net of video and audio. The result of all this is it means I enjoy what I am doing much more because beyond a point, kit just gets in the way.

I'm excited, but I would've been much more excited if it had been an A7SIII with eND instead of IBIS. *shrug* Still very interesting depending on the details. I think there's room for an FX4 in the lineup now. Take the guts of the A1 and add e-ND instead of IBIS, add SDI and in-camera raw, and call it a day.

Yes the Sony A7sIII does allow to punch in while recording.

It's hard to say it's gone wrong. It's so-called creative destruction. There's simply no need for a mass consumer camera market any more. Every home used to have a camera, be it a compact, a SLR, a Polaroid or whatever. No-one needs those any more because everybody (even the children) has a phone that will take better snaps with fewer skills, in a format that allows instant sharing.

Hey kids, my perfect camera would have been a Lumix G6 with a 100mbit codec. I love the HD coming from it. Once graded, it really looks organic to me. Just the shadows become super blocky in low light due to the light codec. Maybe I could get a GH4 for cheap and treat it like my super G6.:) My Lumix S1 is an image powerhouse. But sometimes I dont feel it challenging me but giving away a great image to easily. The G6 always gave me great pleasure in giving me an image I had to work for hard. My dearest camera still. I shot this years ago but still remember the profile settings. Here it goes, natural with contrast 0, sharpness, noise and colour at -2. Graded the heck out of it with crazy curves. Lens was the cheap and awesome Canon 28mm 2.8 and a focal reducer.

If the FX3 has the same image processing, autofocus and eND as any of the other FX cameras it'll be a no-brainer I think especially given its price tag. If it comes with the Sony Alpha processing (strong sharpening and noise reduction) they can keep it. 😉

Awesome thanks! And totally agree that Alpha cameras (A7iii, A7sii, etc) are pretty awful from a video image quality standpoint. But Venice and FX9 have always been way better so if the FX6 is close to that, that's pretty great. On that topic, I think that will be a big differentiator between the A7sIII and the FX3. Does the FX3 look more like the FX9, FX6, Venice? Or more like the A7sIII, which, in my opinion, still has that pretty awful zombie-skintones that have plagued all of the Alpha cameras and the FS5. It looks better, but not that great compared to stuff I've seen from FX9/6.

Yeah, the colours are always gorgeous with ML thanks to the bit depth and colour science. I get a cropped real-time display in Live View, then I press the 'info' button to show me a grey scaled live view (low fps) of the actual raw framing. Then I go back to real-time and click record. I'm so used to it these days haha 🤣🎥

Interesting write-up and I completely agree with your ethos of less being more, as long as the footage is good enough. Depending on the situation I have different levels of tolerance for how big (and therefore how intrusive) the camera can be. I've used everything from a naked GoPro to my various DSLR + Rode VMP sized rigs, and less is absolutely more. I've been tossing things up lately about getting a third Go Shoot camera to compliment the SJ4000 action camera and GF3 + 15/8 lens cap combos. The driving force is that the SJ4000 30p footage looks so thin you need those butchers chainlink gloves to edit it, and the GF3 footage is 25p and nicer but still not that great and the camera isn't easy to use with basically no controls in video at all and no focus assists or anything. But anything that is bigger than the GF3 better be absolutely killing it in the IQ department to justify its size, but I've had some ideas so watch this space. Yeah, I'm with you. I alluded above to being willing to sacrifice a little size for a huge bump in IQ and have some plans. I know that when I get the 10-bit footage from the GH5 into Resolve it's just a dream to edit and all my frustrations with camera whatevers all go away and I forget that RAW or 6K or 8K or 14 stops of DR or whatever even exists. Beautiful tools are beautiful to use throughout the whole production and post-production process. No vignetting for me either... a few test shots converted from RAW 4000x3000 stills: It's really quite a modern lens, with high contrast and flare resistance, and while it isn't tack sharp, it's probably sharper than the 100Mbps bitrate of the average 4K codec. I'm seeing a blur of about 2 pixels on the RAW 4K images, and most lenses don't get much sharper than that, especially for the USD$47 this cost me, brand new:

The Sony fx3 will definitely justify its existence if it offers: noise reduction control Pro monitoring tools including false color, which would help avoid needing an external monitor. That would save you the money, preserve the small form factor, and of course, audio on the top handle leaves no room for external monitor. eNDs v. IBIS...I'm guessing IBIS would be more important to counter the jitters on a small body If it has better AF features like touchscreen tracking and an audio input, that would certainly be an advantage over the fx6

One of the GH5 variants had that, I believe.

True. But always a first - S1H is the first mirrorless camera to get it and then they added it to the S1 through the flash-sync port (I believe), so definitely possible. That's the main reason the S1H is Netflix approved and Sony would be smart to include it if they expect a lot of FX9 and FX6 owners to pick this camera up.

Or let depreciation work for you and get a FS5/GH5/X-H1 instead?? Seriously, with the way the world and the economy is, I'd minimize spending and look for best bang for buck. Let others take the depreciation hit! Not you. Will any of your wedding clients really tell the difference between if you shot it with a X-H1 or X-H2??

Am looking forward to recording this new hairdryer.

There are many good reasons that having a physical filter is better than emulating the effect in post. I'm considering filters myself, although I have lenses that have some of this effect built-in so I'm not starting with a blank canvas. As pointed out in the thread though, lighting conditions and subject matter can make the effect very difficult to control. For example, if you had a strong light in the frame then you might get a huge amount of the effect, compared to a shot with low contrast and no light hitting the filter which might have almost no visible effect. Therefore, to get the two shots to match visually you would have to swap the strength of the filter on each shot to get an end result that looks the same. This is one of the advantages of doing it in post, because you can adjust it afterwards, and don't need to buy every strength of filter, and you can even select values in between the ones that the filters come in, or even animate the effect so that it varies amount in the same shot. For example if you went from a portrait shot and panned to show a scene with the sun in it then you would want more effect at the start of the shot than at the end, and a smooth animation would do the trick in post. I suggest that the best approach is likely to combine the two, getting the majority of the effect using a filter while shooting, but evening it out in post.

Found this IMX492LQJ poking around Sony's website. https://www.sony-semicon.co.jp/products/common/pdf/IMX492LLJ_LQJ_Flyer.pdf It's a multi-aspect sensor that does 8k video and has an all pixel readout of 8432x5680. The 17:9 and 4:3 modes are subsets of this. I think it has a global shutter mode too. Could be an very interesting chip for the next generation of M43 cameras. I used to not care so much about 8k video, but considering a GH6 will probably need to remain competitive for a 5 year or more product cycle, it is probably something Panasonic should think about as it will be competing with full frame cameras and cell phones that already offer 8k. I'd personally probably shoot 99% of the time in some 4k 10 bit VLOG mode, but having the option of going to 8k video capture for special situations could be ideal. Honestly, if this offers great (S1 like) color science and a full 10 bit VLOG in 4:2:2, I could be happy with this camera for 5-10 years. Fun times! I'm still hopeful for the future of M43 now that we've had a round of full frame camera releases from all the major manufacturers.

Let's find out...