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In May 2022, just over six months after her appointment as CEO, Estelle McGechie was fired from Atomos due to her being unwilling to re-locate to Australia. At the time, it seemed a bit odd because you would have thought that her appointment to that senior role would have been contingent on her re-location from the get go. According to a suit that she has now filed in the US, she claims that there was more to it than her relocation. A lot more. In addition to her claims about gender discrimination and a toxic corporate culture at Atomos, there are also allegations that there was 'rampant illegality' at the company with regards to shipping out 'dud' products to fraudulently inflate sales figures to meet projected targets. One example product mentioned in her filing is the CAST switcher add on for the Ninja V range which was shipped without any functioning firmware. The other product mentioned is the Neon grading monitor which shipped with know deficiencies that rendered it outside of the capabilities detailed in its marketing literature and packaging. The CAST product interests me because I've been surprised that for something that is such an appealing product (turns your Ninja V into an ATEM) there has been very little buzz about it since it was launched and comparatively few reviews on YouTube and certainly none from the past few month. Possibly now not as surprising as I'd originally felt. The share price of Atomos in the past twelve months certainly wouldn't have been bringing a nice warm glow to investors anyway, but this latest news has knocked it further. Needless to say, Atomos have refuted all of Estelle McGechie's allegations so it will be interesting to see how this pans out. Full story here : https://www.afr.com/rear-window/ex-ceo-alleges-rampant-illegality-at-ellerston-regal-backed-atomos-20220831-p5be2q

To be truthful I’ve been a bit surprised at the latitude and dynamic range Nikon FLAT offers. Maybe not as much as NLOG, but there is definitely info in the shadows if you dig deep enough. It handles highlights terribly, so it’s best not to overexpose. And the shadows still do have limits, if I have to dig too deep then I hit a threshold where yes there is detail, but it’s undersaturated and some color-noise/mud is introduced. That being said so far I’m impressed with how much I can pull back from the shadows without destroying the image. Then again, lighting conditions were nice on my most recent shoot. I’ll have to do some mid-day stress tests and comparisons, and I’ll let you know what I find. I may start a new thread where I compare NLOG to Nikon Flat.

Blackmagic has released not one, but four Ultimatte hardware keyers! https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/ultimatte And from the sound of the blurbs, the technology is truly state of the art. It will be interesting to see whether they're really as good as they claim. I hope they are.

Sorry, yes, I was keeping my comments in reference to the Mini. From the HD model upwards, there is a Holdout Matte input. There is an 80% price jump from the Mini to the HD though so it increases the cost of a multi camera setup considerably but it is still very good value for money for anyone needing the facility. With some thought, dual background and foreground elements could be coaxed out of Unreal.

It definately can. FYI I currently only have 1 lens, a Tamron SP 45mm 1.8, being used through the FTZ adapter. AF works well enough for talking-head purposes, but it can hut a tad bit at times, and the lens will occasionally lock up, warranting a restart of the camera. I believe it is specific to this lens however; I was able to try some native Nikon F-mount glass through the FTZ; autofocus felt snappy and confident without hunting issues. Even with the Tamron I trust it for simple talking head footage.

That's great, man. At the price used Z6s are going right now it's impossible not to consider it for serious work. What's your opinion of the AF in video? Can it hold it's own in talking-head scenarios? (I've only used my Z50 for this purpose and it was good in AF-F mode with the kit lens. It has no eye-detect AF, though, just face AF)

The Ultimatte 12 HD Mini in particular is very interesting. As they all include frame stores so they can be used 'in line' as it were with a camera, then with the 12 HD Mini being €500, it brings the cost of a four camera fixed virtual set system down to well under €3000 depending on what ATEM you get to switch them with. OK, it won't be an all singing all dancing system with tracked movements as the background will be pre-rendered and static, but for a lot of applications that will be perfectly acceptable. Incredible value for money.

I can agree; I use one on a daily basis. NLOG grades very easily using a Resolve color-managed workflow. Dynamic range is solid, nice highlight rolloff and you can overexpose the image to make things clean. I've been playing with the flat profile and it isn't too bad; definately worse than NLOG, but in Resolve I can do a CST to Arri Log C and then back to Rec709, to make the image behave more like LOG. And I can then raise the exposure while it applies a highlight rolloff, which in turn allows me to dig deeper into the shadows and fully utilize the Nikon FLAT dynamic range. Also with a cheap Ninja Star and the right HDMI settings, you get that 10 bit NLOG image in oversampled 1080p, full-frame with usuable AF.

Nikon Z6 looks very good. Considerably better than the other cameras. And it's FF, as a bonus. Also, it has competente AF for video. Not Canon or Sony level, but certainly good.