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Would have been interesting to see the C70 in there with the dual gain architecture. I think the DR is superior to C500 II on that. Still only 5-10% better than a $1500 Lumix S1 though. So I would never spend that much on a camera. After GFX 100 and Leica SL2 I will probably never buy a very expensive creative tool again because the depreciation and overkill is really quite upsetting. Going back to a humble S1 is itself a humbling experience for a $10,000 camera owner.

There are some things in life that are only highly rated in your head and yours alone. You stand drowning in a sea of indifference, trying to convince the resident Kanye West mouthbreather to listen Dream Theater's first album. With cameras for example, I've stood in the sea of indifference myself for a long time with the waves of stupidity lapping at my feet, making my socks all damp, as I try to convince the mainstream that Sony is not your best buddy, despite what Gerald says and that Canon is not the messiah but a very naughty boy! So here are my top 5 most under appreciated cameras of the current era. Please read on. Reading is also very underrated! New blog post: https://www.eoshd.com/news/what-are-the-5-most-underrated-cameras-for-filmmakers/

Yeah not so much for a cine camera but auto ISO can certainly be helpful for event shooters. The Arri Amira was designed more for doc, TV, or event stuff ENG style, so I don't see why more modern features would be a bad thing for even an Alexa camera. I kind of ignore Canon but the C500 MK2 and C300 MK3 seem to possibly be the best options outside of Arri for overall color consistency and dynamic range. I guess at some point you get what you pay for. It is cool to see what you can do with a $1500 Panasonic camera though.

Someone woke up this morning feeling cheerfully bright and optimistic!

Brooo that is who I am getting the Alexa from.

The rear LCD is fucked so be my guest and I'll claim it on the insurance ! Being a purist, not being able to chimp with it doesn't bother me and just adds to the retro experience. If I was a completist, I'd probably send the SD card off to someone and wait a week for them to send it me back before I could look at the images 😉

Wow the S1 holds up well there. Just shows it is a match for Alexa / Amira when you nail exposure correctly. Great colour science. I see the main flaw being that the skin tones go green in his ETTR test and then there's the banding after that, so not quite as flawless as the Amira there but then it isn't shooting ProRes or RAW in his test. Just internal V-LOG I think

The reason Panasonic needs reliable auto focus is more for marketing purposes than anything. The market has spoken, and it expects Canon or Sony level auto focus and if you don't deliver it most people won't even give it a chance. For me personally I don't need it, but I recognize it's important if the system is going to stick around.

No surprises here, but I'd say it's the Blackmagic Micro Cinema Camera. A modular cinema camera under $1000 brand new, uncompressed Cinema DNG RAW at 60p, and a beautiful image. The image doesn't look like that second generation iPhone or camcorder that Canon love to imitate when clipped either.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMb6CR781Kc With Resolve it superscales to 4K beautifully too. You don't actually want 4K, you just got trained by the camera brands that 1080 is bad because they compress the absolute living crap out of their images - no-one is rejecting the Alexa 1080p because it's not 4K! With great quality RAW images you can push and pull them in post and they keep on giving and this is pretty darn close to that... Plus it's the easiest camera to grade that I have ever seen. Great images just appear when you drop a LUT or CST onto them, rather than struggling for hours to get good colours.

The power draw on the Mini is also less about 60w and 65 on the mini lF. I assume it's just more modern tech. I was interested to know what exactly they did to reduce the power draw but couldn't find any information on it. After further testing of my S1 it definitely doesn't like underexposure. Not only do you get banding at some point but the image quickly becomes pinkish. Keeping skin exposure around zero to +2 gives you a lot of room to work though and still affords you multiple stops in the highlights. Emotive color's luts actually have exposure adjustments for -2, -1, -.66, -.33, +.33, +.66, +1, and +2 that adjust for color shifts. He doesn't have anything for ISO shift unfortunately, though sticking to the native ISO's and just adjusting gain in post seems like the most consistent option. But yeah I agree and don't see why camera manufactures don't have this built into the color science, just seems lazy. The Pocket 6k is the only camera I've seen outside of the Alexa that maintains almost identical color from -4 to +4 exposure, not sure about in higher ISO's though.

Yes although digital grain can be pleasing depending on the camera. For the Oscar nominated film Lady Bird they used the grain from the Alexa sensor as an aesthetic choice. They shot in 2k and would underexpose the sensor and normalize in post to bring out the grain.

Still not as good as Panasonic S1 though Why even think of getting Z Fc for $1000 when you can go on eBay for an S1 at $350 more?

Yes, I mean Sony already has IBIS in their APS-C’s, but it’s unusable. I’m not here to defend this camera, there’s a lot left to be desired, but don’t hate it because it’s beautiful and plastic (like my hometown of LA here).

Right, but having a blanket approach of shot on digital = we have to denoise that, every time, suggests a lack of tolerance for even naturally occuring, finely controlled noise, and possibly a love for plastic textures.

Silly. Film is a lot grainier and we accept that as part of the aesthetic, so I don't know why we need to treat video differently and expect total cleanness to the point of sterility.

My first thought when reading the announcement was, "if Fuji didn't exist this would be right up there with the (terrible) APS-C offerings from Sony and even Canon." I think if it were cheaper it would sort of make sense, but $1k is way too high when the XT-3 is not much more. Same with the Z6, but compared with the S1 and S5. And the problem with a direct Z50 clone but in fashionable colors is that it doesn't appeal to anyone with price or quality, who wasn't already interested in the Z50. A higher or lower quality/price bracket would have been more exciting. But you're right, maybe the weekend photographer crowd who doesn't shoot video will buy it up. I hope it works out for Nikon, I'd love to see a serious, higher spec camera from them either in APS-C or FF, and if this is the way to get funds, then good for them. Overall though I am not optimistic about this or Nikon's other releases.

What’s with all the hate, it’s an alternate-looking Z50, and last I checked the Z50 was pretty well reviewed. Granted, I doubt I’ll sell my S1 for it, but hell, isn’t Nikon days away from bankruptcy? They’re trying out something that the masses might actually buy, I get it. Has phase detection, un-cropped 4K, it’s no worse off than one of the Sony APS-C’s.

In HEVC 6K I think the S1 has highlight dynamic range similar to the Venice, but is cleaner in the shadows because it's more compressed. I never got into the Red ecosystem but some people seem to love it. The Dragon image is nice but it has just okay highlight dynamic range and it's also really noisy, but nice texture to the noise and the color has improved. This guy's channel is pretty spot on I think: https://www.youtube.com/c/Jsfilmz/playlists

The old-school method is to take the camera with you to the place where you WILL be standing, focus on your tripod head from that spot, make sure the focus on the lens doesn't change, then put the camera back on the tripod and go back to the EXACT spot you were standing when you focused on the tripod head. The distance from you to the tripod head is the same as the distance from the tripod head to you 🙂 As far as using a remote, I can try with my pixel remote later and see, but (obviously) with adapted lenses it will have to be af-s.