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At the risk of going off topic, I also remember when on video forums people would post videos that they had made! It's the same everywhere else. On FB groups people post pics of their setup rather than something that they shot with it. By the way I think it's worth pointing out that the original post of this topic was something along the lines of "does 14bit give noticeably better colour?". It's a perfectly valid question or talking point for discussion about one aspect of image quality, and has nothing whatsoever to do with lighting, story, frosted glass or frosted flakes or whatever somebody had for their breakfast... So to veer off into those topics is to miss the point of this thread. Now, here's a video! This is the last project I shot on the 5D3. Hope you like slow cinema!

I think there are better cameras out there for what this camera is marketed for, but for those who've spent the last several years watching YouTubers gush about the A7Siii or the FX3 but couldn't afford one, I think this will be popular with them. I think we forget that the "famous" YouTubers are but a small fraction of those trying to create successful YouTube channels. There are millions of people on there trying to become the next big YouTuber but with limited resources. This is a camera that will probably appeal to them. They were probably ready to whip their credit cards out the second every reviewer said "it's like a A7Siii but for half the price."

8bit 100mbit HD codec from the GH5 is pretty good for a lot of stuff. Twisting colours is pretty solid with it. 100mbit on the 4K from my GX85 is amazingly good for grading. These are in 709 acquisition. Wouldnt film VLog L in 8bit. 100mbit 4K on the A7SII was some of the worst codecs I have had to colour grade for someone. 12 444 all intra hd on the C300II can fall apart badly in bad exposure giving temporal noise reduction artefacts galore. So it´s not 8bit vs 10bit but rather the quality of codec vs codec.

Honestly, I don't even know what we're talking about anymore. I am just a hobbyist who has been using a 5D Mark III with 1080p ML Raw for the past 5-6 years as I attempt to make a few short films in my spare time. I'm hardly chasing cameras. I picked up a Sigma FP a few months ago, on a whim, and I like it. It has a nice image, I can't say for sure that it's a better image than the 5D though. I assumed the 14bit color from the 5D may be evening out the playing field, but what do I know... as I said... I'm not a professional like you guys are. I've always been a writer first, so story is the most important thing to me, but I'm not delusional enough to think I am going to sell a screenplay or make a film that will have any impact on anything. I enjoy doing it, though and I suppose there are worse things I could spend my money on. Next year I may buy a camcorder, making movies was a lot more fun back when camcorders were the only option for zero budget filmmakers. I will end with this, though. Since we're all being so brutally honest... none of these cameras look that good. If you're shooting with a P4K and a Sigma zoom, or a 5D3 with ML Raw... they all look amateurish. So when you guys attack other people for their choices... remember your choices probably look questionable as well. Then again, I've never seen any of your work, so maybe you guy's are artistic geniuses, but how could anyone know... only a few people share any of their work on this forum and when they do, the posts about the next best camera gets way more attention... Good luck to you.

I realized recently that the FZ47 has a sensor that is almost the exact same width as Super 8mm film. I put a pistol grip on mine and used the tiny EVF (I did cheat and use the LCD a few times) and long zoom lens for a very Super 8-esque shooting experience. Next time I'll shoot in 640x480 instead of 1080P so that I can capture the correct aspect ratio in-camera. As a bonus, the 29.97fps looks very natural on a 15fps timeline. And of course I always love working with that global shutter.

Canon WideDR profile is supposed to be precisely this. You could also look into cameras that allow you to bake in LUTs. However, something like WideDR is like a halfway house between log and a standard profile. It's probably not quite contrasty enough so you're going to end up grading anyway. And as @TomTheDP says, grading log is not difficult if you have a good LUT. The only way you're not going to be grading is if you're shooting with an absolutely lovely profile or baked in LUT and you nail exposure and WB every time. With log you can relax a bit while you're shooting.

Do people expect to film 2 hour interviews with it?

This was one of the films I watched right before I bought my 5D3! Great look!

I still…even with the bmpcc4k and R5 8k raw haven’t be able to replicate this look and motion from 5D3 Raw.

Some of the AI tracking features are actually very interesting, like the auto framing lock on center. I could see some really good use for that for product shooting. But as Dan mentions in his above review, all these AI features crop heavily in the cam so its a bewilderment why they chose the A7S3 sensor which does 1:1 4K and seriously degrades the IQ when punching in. These AI features would have been so much more useful on an oversampled 4K sensor. I can't help but feel that this ZV camera would have made much more sense as an APS-C one with the 6K oversampled FX30 sensor at half the price ($1100 / 1350€) and hence with little to no overheating. I don't even think most Vloggers and content creators care that much about FF. Its really an odd decision.

That's nothing, this year I shot 3 music videos for a total of $500....yes you read that right, not $500/ea but $500 total and still managed to make it profitable. I used a single venue, a model who was willing to work for free, 3hrs to film all 3, and about 3hrs on the edits. Yes they look like $500 music videos but that's because they were. Even the audio tracks for each video was recorded live in a single take for each one. Two hours filming the performances and audio live, 1hr filming b-roll and it was a wrap. I agree with you on the volume thing though, I couldn't do that every month let alone every week. They were a nice break from my normal work, but no way would I want that to be my niche.

The FX30 has timecode too! And has a different UI that is better suited for filmmaking, than one for photography. btw, I wouldn't call it "so much worse" though for low light. I'd still happily use the FX30 in low light conditions.

About being overpriced, I think that a even better example is the S5 II, which have a (good) EVF, internal cooling, 24mp (better oversampling), waveforms, a mechanical shutter...for $2000. In the group that I am that people bought ZV-E10s in troves, everybody liked the camera, but...the only ones thinking of getting one are the FX3 users, as a second body. ZV-E10 is $700. With the $1300 difference, they could buy lenses (Viltrox is VERY popular in that group too). And to upgrade from the ZV-E10 to ZV-E1, the user will have probably to upgrade it's lenses too. ZV-E10 users are not the target of this one.

I own A7S3. There have been no major updates for this camera in a fucking eternity! Now they release ZV-E1 which has the same sensor and processor (according to Gerald) and every a7S3 owner is obviously pissed off. Its got so many new features that we all want but not going to get, cos SONY IS... I really dont know, what is their reason to justify this obnoxious attiude. Do they want to simply increase sales a tiny bit by doing it, in exchange of a major reputation damage? What are they thinking? Maybe we need to start an online petition, ah? There are a ton of videos on youtube complaining about it over and over again, Philip Bloom did a video, Gerald adressed it, in the comments people are raged, but still nothing. Sony is not adressing, not talking about it, not giving any timeline of new firmware updates, they are completely silent on the subject. Maybe Andrew can interview them and ask that question directly? WTF is going on? That would be nice. I dont understand why a company would create such a terrible case in the first place. The loayalty and attitude of your fanbase and community is extremly important espescially nowdays, when fewer and fewer ppl by cameras. For me it became a substantial reason to even think about switching. I am looking at Panasonic - they are very generous with their firmware and camera support for years. Now they have PDAF, they have the best IBIS in town, I just want them to make o compact (not a huge 1kg monster), affordable camera that has FF 4k60p and might seriosly consider switching.

The a7siii is a hybrid camera that takes great video. But, it is not a video camera - most importantly, it overheats at high video frame rates especially. Its ergonomics are exactly the same as Sony stills cameras. If you want a video camera from Sony with the same innards, you have the fx3, which does not overheat and which has ergonomics - hardware - better suited to video. Is this unfair to abandon the hybrid camera in terms of video upgrades? Maybe. But what are you really missing out on? The a7siii video image is fine, same as the fx3 even post updates. The missed upgrades really do not matter that much for image quality - do you really need synched time code? Do you really care about menu configurations? Is adding LUTs beyond the REC709 viewing LUT for Slog3 important? And, I believe the fx3 updates did NOT add built-in breathing correction; but, the fx30 has that out of the box. So, again, the fx3 and the a7siii have the same video capability. You cannot fix the overheating of the a7siii with a firmware upgrade, or give it tally lights, or a zoom rocker, or eliminate the viewfinder hump. An no firmware update made the fx3 image better than the a7siii image either. And most if not all of the new features of the ZV E1 are laughable for serious videographers. Do you really want severely cropped auto framing? Product mode. Seriously.

Correct about Canon, totally wrong about Panasonic. They're quite open and welcoming!

Yes, I think the first shot of the sun coming up on the landscape has a fade in of something like sixty seconds. So like, it is indeed getting brighter in the scene but I'm also doing a one minute fade in from black. At the time I probably needed RAW for this. I think it was just before the GH5 10bit 422 era. You mentioned in a DM that the original file downloaded from Vimeo is much cleaner. There is terrible banding in the streaming version for the first minute, but the footage itself is pristine. What's interesting to me looking at it now is the softness of the footage as I'm used to looking at 4K (and I think the softnes looks great). I may have shot it at 2.8K or something, I'm not sure, for 2048 x whatever DCP delivery. But then I may even have blurred it a little bit! I know I definitely blurred the title and end credits as they looked a bit too sharp to me.

I have never had to make that choice as the difference in price is minimal. If you are getting an Alexa Mini or Sony Venice that is a different story. But yes between choosing one of the 12 bit readout cameras on the market and an older RED or Alexa I would definitely go with RED or Alexa. I always have access to basic lighting packages. Now if it were a situation where I thought we would have to film at 6400 iso or something I would have to go with something like a S1H but aside from that personally I wouldn't. Looking at Gerald Undone's review and his dynamic range tests of that sensor, it looks significantly better than the previous Fuji sensor which I owned at one point. Almost purchased the XH2S as soon as I saw that review and his findings. A lot of the dynamic range of that sensor is in the shadows and it does get noisy. But if the color rendition is maintained and the noise monochromatic I like that look. One of the traits of an Alexa is that underexposure results in noise. However it doesn't have color noise and maintains color rendition nicely. Of course the XH2S doesn't have the Alexa's highlight retention. @jpfilmz There is also something about older canon color science that is really nice. @hyalinejim very nice work!

I don't feel you really have to grade log. You can just put on a lut and adjust the exposure if you need/want. But in terms of your question I would say it depends what other features you are looking for. The Canon R8, FX30, or Panasonic S5 MK2 seem like good relatively budget options. If you can, renting or borrowing is the best way to really see if you like a camera as IQ is only one aspect.

Glad we can discuss any camera and launch we want on this forum. Glad I can also just read comments without having to comment. I don´t find this release to be for the better of this world. Same with 8k TVs and smartphones, production and streaming, all for which our planet is being wasted for.

The look difference these cameras have extends past just white balance and tint differences. Shooting in REC709 isn't bad per say. Really depends on the camera's processing. I prefer organic looking noise, REC709 profiles often use aggressive NR which gets rid of all organic looking texture. Some are worse than others. Another issue is things like color clipping and highlight roll off which are sometimes handled poorly in REC709 profiles. This is why I usually prefer to shoot log. But for fast turn around or low paying stuff where the client doesn't care a baked in look is sometimes the way to go for sure. Also if you just shoot a lot of home video or self documentary stuff, it can be nice to save the space and shoot 8 bit. I also agree with @PannySVHS It can really depend on the camera/codec/processing. All 8 bit isn't equal, same with 10 bit.

Yes but that is the only way to make money when you don't have an obscene amount of money to market to general audiences.

This camera doesn't seem to be marketed toward folks using extensive color correction or 30-45 minute runtimes for single clips. Most content creators on YT, etc., probably record 30s to 5 minutes on most clips.

There was a major firmware update for the Sony fx3. It included a complete overhaul of the menu system, removal of Slog2, LUT import, Cine EI, and time code synch. Matching features that appeared in the newer fx30. Most of the feature upgrades in firmware and in new cameras seem to me to be specific to video - focus breathing compensation, LUTs, timecode synch, etc. Thus, specific to cinema (video-oriented cameras). How much do stills shooters benefit from any of the new add-ons? Very little. So, hybrid cameras are evidently considered mainly stills camera, like the a7siii (the stills camera equivalent to the fx3).

To what degree are folks creating travel videos, vlogs, and YT content filming for greater than 30-45 minutes at a single clip? I'd imagine that is very small segment and within that segment they do it sparingly.

Actually music videos are my favorite type of project to work on, if there was any money at all in it in my area I would shoot a lot more but where I live the artists have no money and music artists aren't really a big thing here. The key to music videos is to be very selective with who you work with. You quickly learn to decline projects where the artists wants cars, women, and mansions for their $500 budget. I also won't shoot any that feature guns, drugs, violence, etc. because their tiny budget wouldn't offset the number of high-end clientele that type of content could drive away from my business. The best clients in my area are in the $1500-$5000 range and they let you do your job which is to create the visuals for their lyrics. I think weddings are like everything else, the conditions have to be right for them to be worth it. Just like music videos and the big events that I shoot, where you are located can completely change the types of projects that are profitable or enjoyable. In a small town with no big profitable events, my business model would not work. To me weddings are my least favorite of all projects. In my area they don't pay very well since this is not a wedding destination and there's tons of wedding videographers/photographers here, and the sheer disorganization of it all combined with trying to get a few min of the bride and groom's time on their wedding day and combined with trying to get everyone mic'd up for good audio makes it just not something I want to shoot. Also, the only geographic feature here is the beaches so everyone wants a beach wedding which is blazing hot in the summer so you have to worry about your gear overheating and the sand gets into every single crevice of your equipment. In an area with less competition, that is a wedding destination, where weddings paid better I would be more inclined to pursue that type of work.

I'll 2nd that, you have a great eye some lovely compositions

Probably the most honest review, he got the camera to overheat on his couch while just menu diving and it overheat in FIVE minutes in 4K60p while shooting outdoors in non summer Florida: Its expected in June so well after all the reviews will be out.

ohhhh.... I like a good conspiracy theory! And this one has some legs. Let's see how quick the firmware update comes out.

A truly beautiful piece of work.

All I've heard is it has 2:35:1 in "cinematic" mode. There is a surprising lack of vertical options imo. I would have thought that would have been top features but it seems this is first and foremost a YouTube VLOG camera. Big missed opportunity imo to not cater to the massive social media / TikTok market.. The ZE1 UI isn't aimed at photography though, its a videography oriented tool. It has the FX zoom rocker and the same quick video menu. On the physical side its super dumbed-down to the maximum with a shallow/deep DoF button and subject detection button for AF. Just about everything else is gestures and touch via the display. The FX30 low light is definitely much worse than the A7S3/FX3/ZVE1. That doesn't mean its terrible but its far from great (even by APS-C/S35 standards). Tons of noise in the shadows, especially at high frame rates. I think you're being a little hard on it. We are not the target market. The price is steep but they did stick the A7S3 sensor in it, A7RV AF, FX3 features etc. Plus all those AI tools. Actually a lot of high-end specs.. on a tiny consumer body. While that's rather impressive and unexpected, the problem is of course thermal management. I even suspect Sony deliberately removed 4K120p at launch so no reviewer would slam the camera for overheating under 10 minutes. I don't hate this camera, in fact its kind of a greatest hits of Sony Alpha video specs but the body and thermal management suck. And that makes the package at its price not viable to me. But I suspect the intended market will shoot 8-bit codecs to extend overheating. Your country has severe taxes! The ZVE-1 is 2699€ in mainland EU so expect 3000€ in your country. Do you still find that a good deal for a Sony camera with no EVF, single card slot, and that overheats in 30mn in 4K24p when recording XAVC-I ?

Z battery and IBIS plus all the gimmicks, (huge) PLUS LENSES suitable for the task. Marketed as an A7SmkIII lite.. R6mkII still 3.200€ R8 is 1.939€ A7SmkIII 3.999€ A7c is 1.999€ I am still waiting for the official local pricing, but it seems to me as perfectly fine for the targeted group, plus there are many more options up and down.

Two big categories: cats & backyards

I just have one word: Weddings 💰 Sure, they don’t have the caché of shooting music videos never mind even short films, but a lot more creative freedom compared with working for an actual client! OK, the couple are your client but if you are doing it right, they will have next to zero creative input. If I could restart my career, sure, I’d rather be working towards being the cinematographer on Dune, but like 95% of actors who work in coffee shops to make ends meet, I decided to be the indépendant coffee shop owner over the casual working there. I digress, but the one thing this industry has taught me is to steer well clear of demanding people with ‘ideas’ 🤪

I thought of a use for it, as a gimbal cam. Then I remembered the ZV-E10 exists at 1/4 of the price. This new boy, the Sony Narcissist or whatever it is called, really is a turd of a camera. At sub 1k cost, OK, maybe I would give it a pass, but at what they are asking?! 😵‍💫

That is brutal. Just to get a basic yearly income he'll have to do two each and every week! And that includes: marketing to find new clients, onboarding them, doing the preproduction, doing the shoot itself, doing all the postproduction himself (otherwise that eats into profits) and delivery!

Interesting is if you use it for external HDMI it can still overheat I guess it is really for vlogging camera.

Canon users really have a victim complex. Of course it is a flaw. As is the plasticky body, the single card slot, the insane crop needed to get usable stabilization, the overheating, etc. The difference is that Sony has more credibility with people because they haven't spent the last decade dicking people around while Canon has, so people are a lot less fervid in their criticism. If you want to criticize Sony then their firmware upgrades are a great place to start. It's ridiculous that they don't push some of these upgrades that are available on cheaper cameras to their more expensive ones, given the hardware is capable of it. Not everything on the ZV-E1 can be carried over to older cameras, but a lot of it can be and SHOULD BE if Sony values their customers. Finally, can't understand the complaint of the sensor. 12 megapixels isn't a flaw because it has a purpose: better low light. If you don't need those low light capabilities or just want more megapixels then you should get the A7IV.

Over-priced trash. OK, it has some individual elements, but as a whole? Nah. FX30 easily. Or if you want a mechanical shutter (and other than Z9, I would), then S5ii, R6ii, R8, XH2/s and maybe even Nikon Z6ii… Or Sony’s own A7iv. This new Sony however seems to be one of those ‘paper spec cameras’ but in any real world use, is a bit shite. I don’t like it. I had a ZV1 and I did like that. This doesn’t fix any of the (few) issues I had with the ZV1. Neither did the other ‘in between’ one whose name I forget… ZVsomething else. I’d rather they just have them girls names or something as it would be easier to remember…

This will probably do well for people producing social media content for businesses, but it'd do much better if they'd included an open gate mode so people could output video to the aspect ratios each service uses. Maybe it's a limit to the sensor size?

For pros FX30 is a much more reliable camera with the active cooling. Sony should have priced this at $1500 to match the R8, at $2200 it is a bit overpriced with no evf, no mechanical shutter (have fun take photo under fluorescent or some odd light) , overheats in 4k60p, no crop mode 4k.

FX30 has active cooling so no overheating to start with. Much better form factor and higher quality build, full HDMI, RAW out, Cine EI mode, top handle with XLR unit, dual card slots. Supersampled 4K so sharper image. APS-C sensor though so much worst low light. They threw a bunch of stuff inside the ZE1 but with the massive overheating its all kind of useless for any type of serious work or simply again hot locations.

honestly the low light of A7S3 is a little over rated imo. its actually a 48MP quad bayer sensor so not actually bigger photo sites. marketing aside if you just compare this cameras price point and its specs to the competition (S5ii, R6ii) that's when you realise how stingy Sony went on specs. Actually the test I saw was the camera overheating in 30mn in XAVC-I in 24p in normal indoor conditions !!! Going LongGop extends the time and 8-bit as well obviously. Gerald Undones video is up now and the overheating jumps down from 2 hours to 1 hour when ambient temperature rises from 22 to 24 degrees Celsius. The camera will probably be completely unusable in summer / hot locations. I'm not even speaking of 4K60p & 4K120p. This is really my main gripe about the camera. No matter the target.

Might be niche on the surface as its primarily for live broadcast but this time limited offer might be worth considering for some of the many Ninja V/V+ owners on here. To recap about the two products (both of which house the Ninja V/V+ but obviously not simultaneously).. The AtomX Cast turns the Ninja V/V+ into a fully fledged four input switcher complete with a USB-C output for streaming input to broadcast it with your phone/laptop/ipad etc that can accept the webcam standard input (YouTube, Facebook, Skype, Teams etc etc). Full details here https://www.atomos.com/accessories/atomxcast The Atomos Connect adds a lot of connectivity utility for the Ninja V/V+ including an SDI input, WiFi6 and 1GB Ethernet for streaming and on set remote viewing, simultaneous ProRes and H265 proxy recordings (with timecode), Camera To Cloud to upload live from the camera, wireless timecode and remote control over BLE from an app. Atomos have also just announced a €99 paid upgrade to add NDI to its output so the camera can be used wirelessly within a standard broadcast protocol. Full details here https://www.atomos.com/accessories/atomos-connect On the surface, it might not seem like this bundle has much of an audience here but I think the Atomos Connect adds so much overall utility and AtomX Cast offers a whole new opportunity that its pretty transformative for the Ninja V/V+ and is a real bargain.

Full 6k 3:2 is not possible with cDNG because of the enormous data rates which need to be transferred to the USB-C drive - drives are too slow over USB-C for that. The sensor is natively able to produce something like 3k in 3:2 though, hoping for SIGMA to implement that mode. For the SIRUI 1.6x that would be a perfect match. 😉

Totally depends on your workflow. If you are shooting log and want the heavy grading workflow, in most cases 10bit is a must. If you are using a rec709 profile in camera and don't care a whole lot, then in most cases 8bit is fine. To me 10bit is simply an intermediate codec that gets us to an eventual 8bit final output, like log to rec709.

8k 60p DCI RAW vs 8k 30p 10bit not really a blowing away… Plus S35 6k 60p RAW… and for 2100$ less than the A1. Z9 is better priced and more competitive than the A1 for video.

For the whopping asking price ( 7299€ !!!) it kind of is behind imo: No DCI options, no waveform, no LUT support, no pro / RAW internal codec etc. I'd much rather get an R5 for 3500€ now that the overheat is fixed. Sony just refuses to give you these pro video features on an Alpha camera. They barely even give you them in the FX3/FX30. Still some very clear segmenting going on with them.

So I shouldn't get an 8K phone because you are worried about climate change? Lol.

We had this topic in 2015 about 4K. Very similar responses i.e. anti-4K. I used a 4K Oppo phone before I got a GH4. Terrible dynamic range and I didn't attempt anything other than bright daylight. Had to go back and re-shoot the videos with the GH4. The raw 4K sounds interesting. I shall look that up. Maybe there is a way to do raw 6K or 8K too? Apparently my Xiaomi upscales 6K to 8K anyway. Either way, I will be filming on my A6400 in 4K this time (attached to the phone), as I am not relying on phone video. I am just open to it for the sake of having some 8K footage. Maybe we will be back here in 2030 regarding 16K phones. 😉